State of Mind
by Gennerator
Summary: Was she afraid of him? What kind of a question was that? He had brought her along knowing well and good that he might kill her. Was she PISSED at him would be a more felicitous inquiry. Gaara, Sakura, Naruto, and the mentally unhinged. ::GaaSaku::
1. Prologue

Tsunade was looking unusually grave today.

And for that matter, so was Shizune. It wasn't particularly unusual for the woman to look strained and tense, but there was something different today, a nervous edge to her. And, if the way she refused to make eye contact was any indication, Sakura deduced their current moods had something to do with her.

Naruto was there, too, and a sudden explanation hit her with the force of a PMSing rhinoceros. Sasuke's dead.

But Kakashi should have been there too, shouldn't he? They were a team, after all. His soldiers, she recalled. Kakashi would have liked to know that his favorite G.I. Joe had been taken by the Cobra. And his death wouldn't explain Shizune's anxiety. Sakura relaxed.

Her next thought was only slightly less serious. I'm in trouble. But then, that was stupid. She was an obedient student, if not somewhat violent... and as far as she could remember, she and Naruto hadn't teamed up on one of their...village adventures in quite a while.

She also had a sneaking suspicion Tsunade wouldn't care if she ever caught the Dream Team pulling pranks on the villagers. As her shishou said, too much paper work, too little alcohol...or something like that. It was tricky to decipher what Tsunade said when she was totally stone drunk.

So, with both of those possibilities dead, Sakura felt a sudden blast of intuition, and knew the second she walked into Tsunade's office that things, whatever they were, were not going to work out in her favor.

Naruto grinned at her as she took her seat beside him, and muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Any idea what's going on?"

She uttered back. "Not a clue."

A masked ANBU shut the door behind her, and Sakura was overcome with the mad desire for fight or flight – but that was ridiculous. She was acting like a child who had been caught doing something naughty, and she didn't even know why.

It was a little embarrassing, really.

Naruto impatiently fiddled with the crystal necklace dangling from his neck, and Tsunade's eyes flickered to it briefly before rising to stare the two teenagers down. Naruto was getting agitated, she could tell, and she didn't like to think what would happen to her if he decided to mouth off.

"...Shishou?" She broke the silence tentatively, not really wanting to draw attention to herself. Tsunade looked at her, eyes surprisingly tolerant. "Was there...something you needed?"

Tsunade's gaze immediately softened, and Sakura's sense of foreboding increased. Tsunade was not a touchy-feely kind of person. Something was wrong.

Seated behind her desk with her chin gently resting on interlaced fingers, Tsunade's brow furrowed. She didn't speak for several seconds, apparently gathering what she was going to say. "You recall Sabaku No Gaara?"

Sakura blinked and opened her mouth, but Naruto beat her to the punch. "What's wrong with him?" He demanded, obviously remembering their last encounter with the young Kage.

Tsunade's eyes flickered with annoyance, a small reassurance that some things were still normal. "Nothing's wrong with him," she snapped. "Shut up and let me finish."

Naruto kept quiet, reluctantly. Satisfied, Tsunade continued. "Obviously, you remember his...behavior disorders from your first Chuunin Exam."

What, you mean being fucking insane? Sakura uneasily watched Shizune pick at the bottom of her sleeve.

"You mean being stressed because his village kept trying to kill him? Yeah, I remember." Naruto narrowed his eyes.

Tsunade gave him an appraising look. "And in order to become Kazekage, he had to overcome that stress. Which he eventually did."

"Uh-huh..."

For a split second, Tsunade hesitated. Then she collected herself and ploughed on. "We suspect he's regressing."

Sakura and Naruto both leapt to their feet. "But that's not possible!" "Bullshit!"

"Sakura, it's entirely possible. Naruto, shut the hell up."

"But Shishou, Shukaku was removed, there's no way – "

"Gaara worked for years to get where he is, he wouldn't just drop it all!"

"Naruto. Shut. Up. Both of you, sit down."

Naruto and Sakura exchanged glances, Sakura's nervous and Naruto's angry. They slowly returned to their seats. "Who's we?" Naruto ground out.

"Gaara's advisors and I."

Naruto's gaze darkened. "Don't you think you should ask Gaara?"

"Gaara agrees. He's the one who requested this mission."

Dear God. "Mission?" Sakura inquired.

Tsunade handed her a scroll, and Sakura hastily unrolled it. Her eyes darted quickly across the page, and her jaw clenched with determination. "We accept," she said firmly, handing it to Naruto.

"A diplomatic visit to Wave?" Naruto said. "What for?"

"It's more than that," Tsunade said. "More of a...clinical study. Your job is to observe him. Determine whether he's mentally stable. Safe."

Naruto nodded gravely. "All right."

"But the fact remains." Sakura frowned. "Shukaku was removed. How could his state of mind deteriorate if the problem was fixed?"

"Not entirely. As we've – Gaara included – come to suspect, the Akatsuki didn't have time to finish the job."

"A fragment of Shukaku is still inside him."


	2. Start

"This is just so – so fucking unbelievable!"

"It doesn't make sense," Sakura said, brow creased. "A fragment...I don't understand..."

They stood outside the Hokage's tower, not really sure where to go from there. The sun had set somewhere during the time they'd spent in Tsunade's office, and a cool breeze ruffled Sakura's pink locks. She impatiently tucked a strand behind her ear.

"Does it matter if we understand?" Naruto grit out from between clenched teeth. "Gaara still has a goddamn monster inside of him, whether we understand it or not."

"I know," she soothed. "I'm just saying."

They were silent for a while, and when Naruto spoke again, his voice was choked and he wasn't looking at her. "It's just so _unfair_..."

_Haven't you realized? Neither is life_. She quelled that train of thought, grimacing. Fifteen was too young to be so jaded.

Instead she grabbed Naruto's elbow, turning him to face her. "We'll figure something out." She faked a smile for his benefit, hoping he couldn't see through it. "Gaara's fairly resilient."

He didn't look convinced, but years of interaction with her seemed to clue him in that she was making an effort. He gave her an equally plastic smile. "Yeah..."

It was quiet then, each of them contemplating the task before them. Sakura silently lay a loose plan. First, she'd examine him. And then...

Well. That's why it was loose.

She'd proceed in accordance to what she found. That sounded better than I Don't Know.

"We have to get up early tomorrow. We'd better get some sleep." Her lips quirked upward and she gave him a wry look. "We wouldn't want you to be low on energy."

He grinned too, in earnest. "I guess not." It faded quickly, though, and when they parted he sounded more tired than enthusiastic. Sakura watched his back and wondered how hard the past few years had been for him.

Life really _wasn't_ fair, was it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_He couldn't come to us. Oh no. He couldn't even meet us halfway. We have to go to him, and then proceed in practically the opposite direction._

Sakura was really getting sick and tired of sand. It was squishy and hot, and she didn't have the chakra reserves to flit along top of it for hours on end, unlike _some_ people. People who were avoiding eye contact.

At the moment, things between her and Naruto were awkward, due to a certain incident that had occurred earlier. He'd suddenly stopped running and grabbed her, demanding to know why she was bleeding. She'd immediately denied it, but he'd pressed on, saying she was lying, he could smell the blood. She'd eventually caved, saying she was just on her period, shut the hell up.

He backed off immediately.

Now the heat and silence were starting to get to her, and they still had almost another day of traveling left. Naruto's disturbed expression was really starting to irritate her, too. Was the fact that her uterus was in perfect working order really something to be afraid of? Boys were so _stupid_.

"All right," she said, more snappishly than she'd meant. "Lunch time."

Naruto stopped, backtracked, and approached her with caution. "What's for lunch?" He eyed her worriedly as if he expected a red tidal wave to spray him in the face.

She roughly threw a cup of instant ramen at him, since he wasn't standing close enough for her to hand it to him like a normal person. His awkwardness evaporated. "Oh, awesome!" He pranced over to where she was starting a fire. There was zero foliage in every direction, so stealth was useless.

"We should be there before nightfall," she said as they waited for the water to boil. A hint of gloom entered her voice. "Then we head immediately to Wave."

"Aw, come on Sakura-chan." Naruto sounded excited. "It'll be good training for when we go get Sasuke."

She momentarily froze, thrown off by how casually he'd mentioned their last teammate. Then she composed herself, pouring hot water into the large styrofoam cups and watching the steam rise. " I suppose...I need to expand my stamina, anyway."

"There's no way he can take both of us," Naruto went on, not noticing when she tensed. "I mean, I was a little shocked that last time, but we're way better prepared now."

She poked her ramen with wooden chopsticks, not meeting his eyes when she spoke. "Naruto...what are we going to do when we find him?"

He gave her a confused look. "Take him home, obviously."

"And then what?"

"We...kick him around some more?"

She leveled her gaze with him. She'd been thinking about this for a while, but had been too afraid to share it with Naruto. He was so passionate; she had no idea how he'd react. "And what's to stop him from leaving again?" She asked quietly.

"Us," he said too quickly, defensive. She sighed. Naruto was more observant than most people gave him credit for.

"Naruto, I don't think we mean anything to him." She kept her voice even, a triumph. It hurt more out loud than it had in her head.

"That's a lie." His voice shook and grew in volume. "You know that's not true!"

"He tried to kill us, Naruto, what do you think that means?"

"So you want to just _give up_?"

"Of course not," she said immediately. "But we need to be realistic. We're not children anymore, not everything is so easy."

The silence set in, wrapping itself around them and refusing to let go. Sakura leaned forward to touch his shoulder, but he pulled back, watching her with guarded eyes. "Let's pack up," he said. "We want to get there before nightfall."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The remainder of the trip was quiet. Sakura no longer noticed the hot, scratchy sand. She wasn't used to Naruto being angry with her. The only other time he'd been so was when she'd attempted to run between him and Sasuke – he'd been unable to even look at her then. Her stomach tightened at the grisly memory. That had marked the beginning of her personal nightmare.

She wasn't sure what hurt more – her teammates telling her to stay out of it because she was too insignificant to have a fucking _say_ in whether or not they killed each other, or her best friend giving her the cold shoulder because she threatened his ideal future.

Well. At least now she was a threat, as opposed to an annoyance. Not that Naruto had ever thought her annoying, but Sasuke had certainly expressed it enough.

Okay. Time to shut down that train of thought.

Naruto was walking strangely. She watched him for a minute, taking in his slumped posture and ragged breathing, then rolled her eyes heavenward. No doubt he'd been like this for a while, and she had been too preoccupied to notice.

"Naruto," she called. "Come here."

He did, reluctantly, eyes staring hard at the ground. They shot upward to her face when she deftly unzipped his jacket and placed one flat palm to his mesh-clad chest, frowning. "You're on the brink of heat exhaustion," she murmured, feeling around with her chakra. "How long have you been like this?"

"...like what?"

A long stream of air left her mouth and she shook her head disbelievingly. Leave it to Naruto to not notice his body was in distress...he probably would have been shocked when he finally collapsed face first into the ground.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" She asked, guiding a gentle stream of cool chakra into his blood flow.

"Not really...I tried," he amended quickly. Then he frowned. "Aren't you going to need that chakra? We have another hour of traveling, and we won't get to rest long after that."

"I have enough," she said, although he was probably right. Her pride said otherwise. "Take off your jacket, that's part of the problem."

"You just want to ogle me."

"Yeah, dream on." She slipped off her pack and pulled out the cloaks they'd brought. The sun was reaching its peak in the sky, and her pale skin had already taken on a pinkish tinge. She didn't really mind shouldering on the bulky material, though – Naruto was talking to her again.

They continued on, and Naruto was considerate enough to slow the pace for her. She hid a smile, knowing he would ask about it if he saw. Naruto was going to make some girl a wonderful boyfriend someday.

She became a little anxious as the high walls of Suna loomed into sight. She hadn't quite managed to shake her first impression of Gaara – a sadistic psychopath. She was forgiving, but she wasn't stupid. If he was inching back into his previous state...well, she wasn't necessarily in his good graces. Naruto, he might hesitate to mutilate. Her, on the other hand...

It was enough to make her antsy.

They came to a stop in front of the two Sand-nin guarding the only opening into the village. Naruto handed over their pass and they were let through, one man following to escort them to the Kazekage's tower. Sakura's resolve hardened as she walked briskly at Naruto's side. Maniac or not, Gaara was still a human, and he needed help. For now, she would put her own fears aside – they weren't important.

It was more shady inside Suna, and when they reached the tower, Sakura was _thrilled_ to discover it was air-conditioned. She and Naruto shrugged out of their cloaks as the guard knocked gingerly on a large door. "Kazekage-sama. The two escorts from Konoha have arrived."

A quiet voice answered. "Send them in."

He bowed, then ushered them inside the office, closing the door behind them.

Gaara looked strangely more casual since the last time she'd seen him. And that was saying something, since the last time she'd seen him he had been dead. He wasn't wearing his formal robes or his gourd, just a simple pair of long black pants with a similar shirt. His scarlet hair was getting a bit long, to the point that the tips of his bangs barely brushed against his eyelids. He was sitting behind his desk, posture calm, relaxed.

His impassive sea foam eyes were as alert as ever

She stared at him, wondering if he remembered her. She certainly remembered him. But his eyes just slid over her and continued on to Naruto. No "Hey, didn't I try to kill you once?" There was no recognition in his gaze whatsoever.

That _bastard_.

"It's great to see you too, Gaara." Naruto rolled his eyes.

Gaara's mouth quirked and he nodded. "Naruto."

A few more seconds of silence.

"...Sakura?" She ventured, managing to keep the irritation in her voice at a minimum.

His eyes snapped back to her, expression appraising. He gave another almost-smirk and nodded at her, too.

"Not that all these warm fuzzies aren't great," Naruto said loudly. "But when can we leave?"

"Tomorrow morning."

His voice had deepened, she realized. She'd never noticed before...

"What? But I thought we were leaving now!" Naruto almost whined. Inner Sakura reared her head. _**Dammit, shut up!**_

"That was what I originally intended." His gaze swept back over them again. Sakura suddenly wished she had prevented her sunburn. "But you two might collapse if you go any further. A room will be prepared for you."

The word _a_ was ringing alarm bells, but Sakura was too exceedingly grateful to pay attention to them. She eagerly followed the same guard as he led them to the only Inn in Suna, Naruto trailing forlornly behind her. "I am _not_ about to collapse..."

By the time she'd eaten, showered, and slathered herself in aloe, night had fallen. She came out of the bathroom towel-drying her hair. Naruto was already sprawled on the only bed, practically asleep. She changed into a large T-shirt and boxers, confident he wouldn't open his eyes, then slipped in beside him. "If you grope me I'll rip your arms off," she warned.

His eyelids fluttered. "Mkay..."

She turned onto her side and closed her eyes.

Forty-five minutes later she finally slipped out of bed, wide awake. It just figured she wouldn't be able to sleep. She made her way to the circular hole in the wall that passed as a window and gazed out. Suna was really pretty, actually. The sky was much clearer here, black, dotted with tiny white stars.

Wanting to get a better look, she gripped the edge and hauled herself out and up, onto the flat roof. She crossed her legs and leaned back onto her hands, gazing dreamily upwards.

"What are you doing?"

It was a tribute to her self control that she didn't go tumbling off the edge of the roof. She snapped her gaze to the left. Gaara was sitting not three feet away from her, one arm draped nonchalantly across his knee. _Shit._

"How long have you been there?" She gasped.

"A few hours." He was staring straight at her, but his gaze was more curious than hostile. She slowly un-tensed her muscles.

"You scared me," she muttered. "I'm just looking at the stars, Gaara-san." Was it disrespectful to call him by his first name?

He didn't seem bothered. "Why?"

She shrugged. "It's a nice escape from reality, I guess. I can't sleep." She blinked as something occurred to her. "Can you?"

His tone turned bitter. "Not anymore."

"Oh," she said. For some reason, her mouth chose then to be retarded. "Well, that sucks."

Holy shit. Holy shit, what was wrong with her?

But he only looked bemused. "No one's ever said that to me. 'I'm sorry,' is the standard reply."

"Well, I'm sorry too, I suppose." She said, confident she wasn't going to die just yet. "Why are _you _here?"

"There isn't much else to do at night." He turned to look out at the sandy landscape.

The oddness of the situation wasn't lost on her. She shouldn't have been alone with the Kazekage, on such casual terms. Who only knew what Konoha's council would say. Not to mention she was putting her own life in danger, never mind politics. She was perfectly vulnerable here, alone, on a rooftop, surrounded on all sides by Gaara's favorite plaything, clad in nothing but panties, boxers, and a loose shirt.

Wait. Could he tell she wasn't wearing a bra?

"Gaara-san?" She asked, carefully drawing her legs up to her chest. She gathered her nerve when his eyes questioningly flashed to her face. "Um, Tsunade said you were...regressing. But it doesn't look like that to me."

"Just because it doesn't seem that way doesn't mean it isn't happening."

She swallowed. "Oh. So you have some control, then?"

"I wouldn't be able to lead Suna, otherwise," he said, giving her a withering look.

She frowned at the mocking edge that had entered his voice. How the hell was she supposed to know how his mind worked? "Explain, please," she said tersely.

"Why should I do that?" There it was again. Mocking. Asshole.

"I do want to help you Gaara, believe it or not," she snapped. "And I'll have a way better chance of doing that if you aren't so damn cryptic with me."

Seconds passed. A minute. Sakura bit her lip, knowing she had strayed way over the line.

"I apologize if I offended you, Kazekage-sama," she muttered, pushing herself to her feet. "Good night."

He didn't even look at her as she lowered herself over the roof and swung back through the window. He was gazing silently up at the sky.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning she and Naruto packed quickly, replenishing their food and water supply. They shrugged their cloaks back on and headed for Suna's only exit. Gaara was waiting for them, dressed in his black and rust training ensemble.

She watched him warily for signs of anger. His eyes were as impassive as ever. "Let's go," he said, voice monotone, and turned. Naruto bounded excitedly ahead.

She crushed the unexpected wave of disappointment. Well, what had she expected? Special treatment because they'd had a three minute conversation? She had no business caring, anyway. She carefully rearranged her emotions and turned to follow Naruto.

Something gripped her wrist, stopping her.

"He comes in pangs," Gaara breathed in her ear.

He released her and strode on ahead, leaving her staring after him.


	3. Seals and Shukaku

So umm. My monitor fried itself. God only knows how. I'm on my dad's computer. Being a minor is great. I hope he doesn't read this. Seriously. I really do hope.

Sorry about all the typos it took me about a week to fix. Writing at night doesn't really do much for me. Nathan and Sarah. Hahaha.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pangs. Huh. So it wasn't constant. Well, she'd guessed that much already. Were they random pangs, or did they have triggers? And pangs of what, exactly? Headaches? Little control slips? Complete gore fests? She should have asked him.

Now Sakura was staring at his back as they trudged through the desert, and the three or so yards separating them could have been filled with fire for how likely she was to cross them. Damn. Why did she never seize opportunities when they presented themselves? When he had let go of her she could have just run after him, grabbed his arm, and demanded to know what the hell he was talking about.

And then he probably would have crushed every bone in her body.

Details…

Well, they had another week or so of traveling. Maybe longer, since Gaara probably didn't have fantastic stamina. She would corner him sooner or later.

And pray he didn't kill her.

This train of thought sucked.

Maybe he wasn't totally bat-shit crazy. He hadn't threatened to kill her once. Of course, being a kunoichi, she usually didn't just wait around for people to try and kill her the first time. But maybe she could invoke common manners into the situation as opposed to survival one-oh-one. Naruto trusted him, which more or less meant she could trust him, too.

Unless he tried to snap her neck. Then her trust would go on lock down.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shukaku was restless tonight.

Gaara silently slipped from his thick sleeping roll. The icy night air hit his skin, and he barely shivered. The sand at his feet shivered with him.

He couldn't afford to risk sleeping tonight.

_**You won't be able to sleep ever again**_. His voice was faint in the back of his mind, but it was still there, and it shouldn't have been. _Go away_.

He would never be able to sleep again? Gaara crouched on the sand, tracing his finger through it. He could handle never being free of Shukaku, he had accepted that years ago; the fact that he had gotten a brief reprieve from him meant nothing. But for some reason Shukaku had some new foothold on him, something he hadn't had before.

No. Just something he would have to learn to control, like everything else.

He stood, mentally tugging grains of sand from inside his clothing, and began to walk away from camp. Shukaku's presence, weak as it was, still bothered him.

He found a cluster of cacti about five minutes later, and immediately engulfed the nearest one in sand, squeezing until it burst. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as a live animal, but it was something. And if he closed his eyes he could imagine there was blood oozing out instead of water and glucose.

"Is there a particular reason you're killing that plant?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. "It's them or you."

She stiffened. How disgustingly predictable. "Is that a threat?"

"No. It's the truth."

Actually it was a lie. She didn't need to know that.

Sakura was quiet for all of one minute.

"So it's like using a stress ball?"

"Somewhat." Except he liked his stress balls with vital organs. And he made a point of not using stress balls.

He wished she would leave. Shukaku was already starting to claw at the walls of his consciousness. He didn't want the cacti, he wanted _her_.

He let soggy green chunks fall to the ground and moved on to the next one. _No_.

_**It's been so long since you've given me human blood…**_

_I said No._

"I've been meaning to ask you." She was completely oblivious to the danger she was in. Did she have no common sense whatsoever? "When you said he comes in pangs…" She paused, then shrugged. "Explain?"

He clenched his sand, feeling the plant ooze wetly. "They don't usually happen for a particular reason. But sometimes things…excite him. He was constant before." He wasn't used to it. Shukaku being quiet one second and rearing up the next. It threw him off balance.

"Excite him? Like what?"

Blood, small animals, death, decay, the moon. For some reason, her.

"Things you would expect."

She didn't ask him to elaborate. She understood. Next cactus.

"How…bad are they? The pangs?"

_**Tear her apart. Rip her lovely eyes out.**_

He turned around. She watched him curiously.

"Go back to camp."

She was quiet. "All right," she said eventually.

He waited until he couldn't feel the vibrations her feet made anymore before extracting a rodent from a small hole in the last cactus and snapping its spine.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Sakura woke up he was there on his sleeping roll, staring unseeingly at the sky. The dark circles around his eyes had just taken on a whole new meaning to her.

How hard was it? _**Insanely hard**_. How did he stand it? She never would have been able to handle something like that. _**Well, he's stronger than you**_. She felt an automatic twinge of jealousy. She was never naturally talented. She might never get to that legendary status people like Gaara and Naruto had…and Sasuke.

But Gaara was obviously trying so hard…

She made a big deal of getting up, like, No I wasn't just staring at you. "Up and at 'em, Naruto," she said, poking him with her toe.

He groaned and rolled around a few times. Gaara sat up and immediately started packing. Kinda like old times.

Being that she had as much authority over the mission as Naruto, she kept the pace slow when they set out. She wanted as much time as possible to observe Gaara. Not only that, she wanted to actually understand him.

_**And it's probably going to get you hurt in the end.**_

You knew you were in trouble when your inner bitch had more common sense than you did. Oh, damn.

"Why are we going so slow?" Naruto asked. She looked at him. He was practically bouncing, he was so filled to the brim with energy. Geeze, the kid needed to take up yoga.

"There's no point in going fast. And I frankly don't want to." Sometimes his enthusiasm was cute. Other times it made her want to beat the shit out of him. Couldn't he see she was tired? That Gaara was tired, exhausted? He should have noticed, of all people…oh.

"Hey. Naruto."

He slowed down to walk with her. "Yeah?"

"Did Jiraiya ever teach you anything about seals?"

"Um…kinda. I know how they basically work. You know, in case I ever need to...make one. In an emergency."

"Could you make one now?"

He hesitated, smiling embarrassedly. "I know how to make one."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, so lemme get this straight. You want me to just tell you how to do it, then you're going to do it. Without practice."

She smiled, completely serious. "Yes."

Naruto snorted. "This is not going in the mission report."

"We only need a simple one, just so Gaara can sleep at night." She looked at said person for confirmation. He nodded.

"All right. This is crazy. Um, we might as well do it now, while there's still daylight."

Sakura dug an old brush and some ink out of her pack. Gaara solidified a patch of sand for them to work on. She sat across from Naruto as he set to work, drawing messy diagrams on the hard-packed ground.

"Um, so you put this doohickey here, because it…balances shit, or something…"

Naruto was a shit teacher. He was her best friend, and he could do amazing things, but God help him if he ever became an academy teacher.

"And it's…shit, what was it? Tiger ram ram rat tiger dog. And there's some awesome theory behind that, but I can't remember what it is, so you'll just have to do it without understanding why."

"What will happen if Sakura makes a mistake?"

She shivered a little.

"I don't think anything bad could really happen." Naruto squinted in thought. "Except, you know, it not working."

She went through the seals a couple of times to make sure she had them memorized. Gaara removed his vest and top, sitting on the ground, cross-legged and cross-armed.

_Oh, Sakura, what are you doing? _Her consciousness sighed at her as she began to draw a line of complex squiggles perpendicular to Gaara's spine.

_My mission. My mission is to help Gaara in any way possible._

_Your mission is to observe Gaara. Anything past that is just your stupid sympathy._

Her stupid sympathy_ had_ fucked her over in the past. She clenched her teeth. _I'm just doing him a favor. That's all._

She carefully made the last symbol, working clockwise around Gaara. Now or never.

"You ready, Gaara?" Her voice came out quieter than she had intended.

He stared straight ahead. "Yes," he said tensely.

She looked at him speculatively. Gaara, nervous?

_Tiger ram ram rat tiger dog_. She placed one hand on Gaara's back and held the last seal with the other, simultaneously probing him with chakra. She frowned in concentration and delved deeper.

Ah. She found it. Foreign, dark. Not part of normal human anatomy. She pushed more chakra in, trying to surround it. The black symbols on the ground animated themselves and began to slither up his arms and back, up to her hand at the base of his neck. It was all coming together, she could feel it…

And then the dark spot just expanded, and her breath froze in her lungs. The chakra cage she had created stretched to its limit and almost broke. She poured more chakra in, strengthening it. Then she couldn't stop, it was shrinking as fast as it had grown and it was sucking her chakra away with it. She screamed inside her head.

Something growled, low and feral. She saw a flash of yellow eyes, coming at her terrifyingly fast.

The last mark slipped under her hand. With a huge effort she molded the chakra being taken from her and sealed it off. She pulled out.

She wrenched herself away and stumbled back into Naruto. His arms went around her immediately. "What's wrong? Sakura-chan? Sakura!"

She stared past him, and her eyes locked with Gaara's. "_What the fuck was that!_"

He was sweating, hunched over, pale. "I'm sorry…I didn't…I thought…"

"What was it?" she demanded again, then repeated herself. "I thought I was going to die." She clutched at Naruto's cloak, momentarily forgetting her promise to herself that she would never show weakness to anyone, much less the leader of a country. Of course, he looked just as traumatized as her…

Gaara shakily stood up and managed to string a sentence together. "I didn't think he could reach you."

Naruto's arms tightened. "That was Shukaku?"

"What did you think it was?"

"Gaara!"

Naruto looked horrified. "I can't believe you didn't warn us."

"I didn't think he could reach…anywhere else."

Sakura wiped the sweat from her clammy upper lip with a shaking hand. "Yeah?" she snapped. "Where does he usually hang out, your kidney?"

"He isn't supposed to be in my body. He should only be in my mind."

Shit. Fuck. When was any of this going to be normal? She took a step away from Naruto, and he reluctantly dropped his arms.

"So – so he has a physical hold over you now?"

"I don't know," Gaara snarled, finally showing some frustration. "I don't know any of this. You think he's offering me answers?"

She couldn't think about this now. She had just escaped being metaphorically eaten. Or…literally? Shit, who knew? Who knew anything? The mission had never seemed so impossible. Figure out what was wrong with Gaara? He didn't know what was wrong with himself!

Naruto was looking unusually speculative. "All things considered though…nice job, Sakura-chan."

The seal stood out sharply on Gaara's alabaster skin.

She stared at it. "…it worked?"

"I'm not sure. I can't feel him."

"But you can't really tell if he's really suppressed, or if he's just hiding," she concluded.

Naruto shrugged. "Guess we'll find out tonight, huh?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is this becoming a habit?"

"Insomnia isn't a habit."

She waited for him to go on, say it was a disease, but he didn't.

She supposed that was fitting. It wasn't a disease to him – it was his father's stupidity.

"I apologize for speaking so rashly before. I panicked. I acted inappropriately."

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

She blinked. "Do what?"

"Switch between personalities. It's disconcerting."

Humm. "All right. I'm sorry I was such a bitch."

He stared blankly ahead. "You had a right."

She fidgeted, then sat beside him, careful to keep a respectful distance. She cleared her throat. "He couldn't have really…hurt me, could he?"

"It's possible."

Naruto snuffled in his sleep. Sakura pretended this information didn't bother her.

"…you're too afraid to even try sleeping, aren't you?"

He frowned. "Don't assume so much."

Whups. She'd crossed the line again. Damn.

"I could help you, if you want."

He looked at her, eyes flat. "Help me what?"

"Sleep."

His gaze became thoughtful. Though his face betrayed nothing, she could tell he was debating whether or not to trust her. She didn't blink or look away. "I would just need to press a pressure point. It would relax you." She paused, and instead of telling him how painless it was, she said, "You would still be able to wake up if you needed to."

"You're exhausted."

"You shouldn't assume so much." She smiled.

He didn't. "You have used extensive amounts of chakra today."

"I have more than I used to."

"We all have more than we used to. That doesn't mean you can suddenly do everything."

She set her jaw. Geeze. All she needed to do was poke him. "You'd be surprised."

He looked at her again for a long time, then tilted his head in consent. "All right."

She forced her sore muscles to move, and rose to her feet, motioning for him to do the same. Once she had him sitting back on his sleeping roll she permitted herself to study the fresh seal. It still stood out as sharply as it had hours before. Maybe it wouldn't fade at all…?

She lightly dusted her fingers over the back of his neck, stalling. She didn't want to probe into him again. She had no way of knowing what waited for her.

_Coward_, she chided, and deftly pressed a spot to the left of his spine, pushing in a burst of chakra.

If he noticed the way she immediately jerked away after she'd finished, he didn't say anything. Instead he slumped, eyes closing, an gave her a drowsy look that struck her. "I'm grateful," he murmured.

She watched him after he fell asleep; waiting for some sign that he was about to rear up and murder them.

But he was quiet, lost in his peaceful escape. He didn't wake up, and she knew he wasn't dreaming. She had numbed him more than she would have a normal patient. She wanted him to have an easy night of deep, uninterrupted sleep. She figured he deserved it.

She stretched out in her own roll, tucking her chin to retain warmth. So, things were starting to go smoothly for once. What a nice change.

She peeked at Gaara again. No change. No soulless eyes and terrifying deformations. She closed her eyes, trusting him to get through the night without losing control.

Did she trust him to lead a country?

The full moon shone down.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like this chapter. Exploring Gaara and his little friend. Very fun.

And where the hell is Kakashi? Back in the village. Or out on a mission. I dunno. The point being that Gaara requested Naruto and Sakura specifically, nobody else, and Tsunade decided not to go against him. No Kakashi to lead his little soldiers around. Aww.

Anyone who can find the symbolism in this chapter gets a gold star. Yeah!

Tomorrow I'm going to post a second version of the last scene, from Gaara's point of view. No time tonight. Read it. It gives a shitload of insight into Gaara and his condition. It's important, I swear. And it has GaaSaku in it! Clickity click on my name for a magic land filled with joy and wonder. And snow. Because it's cold now, you see? Southern summers suck. My mad winter love is alive.


	4. Squabbles

So...when I said it would take a while to update...I didn't think it would take...this...long...

Oops.

Well, life gets in the way sometimes. And my brooding over all the directions this fic could go shooting off into. I've finally decided, so hopefully I'll be a little more speedy in panning the chapters out. I actually planned to write five or so chapters before I even posted this, so I could keep on track, but...eh. Smart, but boring.

Listened to Gay Bar by Electric Six while writing this. Oh yeah. Over and over.

I also posted a GaaLeeSaku drabble ficlet, but it's incredibly tiny. It won't keep you entertained for long. But I've decided I'm going to add onto it and make a drabble collection.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Animated sand was versatile. So versatile, in fact, that she was having a hell of a time avoiding it. She, who had spent a good portion of the last few years of her life learning how to contort her body so she could avoid projectiles. It was mind-boggling, and _okaysoitwasimpressive_, but she really didn't need to focus on that now.

Naruto was utterly mystified, not do much with what was unfolding in front of him (God knew he had seen more impressive things), but at the fact that his sweet feminine teammate was going head to head with a Raging Cornucopia of Death.

What_ was_ the world coming to?

Said sweet teammate slammed her booted heel into said Cornucopia's solid defense, feeling it crack satisfactorily, then quickly back flipped a safe distance away as a resultory tidal wave of sand followed her. _Challenging a sand magician in the middle of the desert: Bad Idea_. She bent backward and it shot over her; following her momentum, she switched her weight onto her hands and sprang sideways, then unleashed a volley of shuriken. His defense rose again and she shot forward, snapping back a fist and aiming for his exposed side. Sand came curving around his back and she was forced to retreat mid-swing.

The thing that irked her was not the fact that she wasn't landing any hits, but that Gaara was probably having a ridiculously easy time. She was the one who had called him out, she was the one pulling all her best moves, and yet he wasn't even sweating.

A bit frustrating, but...she tended to focus more on not dying than she did on how irritating her opponent was. Just a trick of the trade.

He made a grasping motion and flicked his wrist and suddenly there was a goddamn country's worth of sand shooting at her. She dodged like the good, _utterly non-affected_ ninja she was, dropping into a tightly coiled crouch and then flinging herself forward once the danger had passed. She practically _flew _past his defenses, legs pumping madly, and delivered a well-aimed punch to his ribs. He grunted, _yes _–

– and a solid impact to her stomach sent her flying. She landed sprawled on her back, wheezing uncontrollably as she desperately tried to suck in air.

If it had been a real battle she would have already flipped back onto her feet and been halfway through a genjutsu to cover her retreat. As it was she just lay there, stunned, as Naruto peered at her worriedly. "Sakura-chan? You okay?"

"I'm...fine!" She gasped, feeling more like a dead fish than a kunoichi. Leaving yourself open right after an attack was the very first thing Tsunade had taught her not to do.

She had been excited she'd managed to hit him...

She coughed a couple of times and slowly sat up. Naruto pulled her to her feet. She kept her head down to hide the slight flush of humiliation.

One of the first things you learned as a shinobi was that you were going to lose. There would always be someone who could best you, and if you thought otherwise you were going to get your ass handed to you one way or another. She knew that, perhaps better than most shinobi her age.

But demanding that the leader of a country fight you and then getting knocked flat on your ass was an entirely different story.

Gaara came striding over, looking as cool and collected as if he was simply taking a walk and not checking to see if he had killed her. Her eyes dropped to his ribs. Ostentatiously uninjured. She sighed.

"Are you hurt?" He asked mildly.

"No," she said, a little tightly. _Say something. Do it. I fucking dare you_. Lord knew he was finally close enough for her to get her hands on him.

Naruto fidgeted.

Then he grinned awkwardly.

They kept on staring.

"Eheheh...no...no hard feelings, right, guys...?" More awkward smiling.

_Oh, God, they were going to kill each other._

Sakura abruptly turned on the spot and began walking away, stride long and loose. The males hesitated, and after deciding she knew where she was going, began to follow.

"Um, don't worry, Gaara," she heard Naruto say. "She's not mad at you. Really."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gaara woke up to dim sunlight, the smell of nylon, and complete silence.

He immediately sat up, checking his hands. Clean. He closed his eyes in relief.

He turned his head to the right, and came face to face with a pair of verdant eyes watching him intently. She flushed and looked away. He blinked.

Interesting.

And then after breakfast Sakura had politely (if not with the clear intention of not accepting a no) asked him to spar with her. Then events had escalated and eventually wound down to what they were now.

At first he had just assumed she was_ fucking insane_, challenging him right after the events of the night prior. Was there a more clear-cut form of suicide than asking a maniac to a friendly match? She might as well have given a starving man her lunch and asked him not to eat it. Especially considering Shukaku's newfound interest in strangling her. (And he was being oddly dormant, but he couldn't think of that, because if the seal didn't work it would just be his own personal hell all over again.) He would have been crazy to accept.

But then, there was an avid possibility there were still flecks of crazy in him, so there you go.

And he was feeling...stable. It was the first time in weeks he had been able to go five minutes with telling himself not to kill something, and he was still high off the experience when she asked. In the end she had gotten her way.

He hadn't meant to hit her that hard. Oops.

He studied the relaxed line of her shoulders. It was easy to forget rank when you were alone with someone in the middle of the desert, he supposed, and therefore easy to confidently challenge your uppers. But that didn't explain _why_ she had done it. She wasn't a needlessly vindictive person, he knew that, and as far as he could remember, he hadn't done anything to spite her.

Well. Aside from almost crushing her to death and trying to kill her teammate.

Why else could she have done it?

She and Naruto chattered as they walked a little ways ahead of him, the perfect image of a compatible team. He mentally compared them to his siblings.

Sakura stopped suddenly and craned her neck to look behind her. "Gaara-san? You okay?"

The complete ease with which she spoke to him threw him off. He nodded tensely.

She seemed to mentally shrug and turned back around. And he blinked as realization finally hit him.

She had felt uncomfortable with him this morning. She had fought him so she could bring him back down to her level.

Well, oh.

He stared at her back, feeling vaguely surprised. The fact that he could relate to her on anything was unexpected, never mind something so...oddly similar. Of course, he had _killed_ people when he felt threatened, but he wasn't going to think about that now. Not when he was in the presence of two people whose jobs it was to determine whether or not he was sane.

He hoped he was.

He had determined years ago that it wasn't something he was capable of knowing on his own. That was just the way insanity worked.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They had entered Fire Country. Sakura and Naruto automatically relaxed and Gaara became marginally more snippy than usual. He could tell Sakura found it mildly funny.

They went around Konoha rather than through it, because they didn't really have time for distractions, and it would be a few more days before their rations ran out. And if worse came to worse they could always catch something and skewer it.

They made camp an hour or two after nightfall, each falling into their own routine. As Gaara lay down to sleep he absentmindedly rubbed his ribs.

Miles away, a blonde Akatsukian realized something important.

"FUCK."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for the shortness. My other option was to waffle for another five or so pages, but I didn't want to do that.

So...I'm a little torn between characterization. I could either go with kickass! timeskip Sakura and crazy! notsotimeskip Gaara, or mature! timeskip Sakura and mature! timeskip Gaara.

I'm leaning towards crazy kickass.


	5. Hotels and Receptionists

Lol whut I finally updated.

...school is hard? Especially American History. Jeezum, why do we have so many presidents?

Akatsuki yay!

--

Deidara was having a shitty day. Of epic proportions.

For starters, Sasori was dead, godammit what the fuck, and for another thing, he was in big huge motherfucker trouble. Pein was _pissed_.

"Senpai!"

Tobi popped out of nowhere, chirping at Deidara like he had mistaken him for his mother. Deidara stared at him. "What?"

"Tobi found a flower!"

He was going to kill himself. He was going to kill himself and take Tobi and his flower with him. And after he had killed himself he was going to track down the Kyuubi Wonder and his merry cohorts, because it was their faults he was in the forest with Tobi, wishing Sasori wasn't dead.

And it was kind of his job.

--

The three of them (four, if you counted the boatman) were crammed into a boat. It wasn't a small boat, necessarily, but Naruto and Sakura were starting to learn they had grown a good deal since their last trip to Wave. Especially Naruto. And Gaara, well, he just marked under Naruto in height. Add that plus Sakura and her newly lengthened legs and you had their current situation.

It wasn't comfortable. At all. By any means.

And if Gaara's fluctuating chakra signature was any indication, he didn't appreciate small spaces. Or being surrounded by water.

"And just think," she said slowly. "If Naruto hadn't lost the map, we could have taken the _bridge_."

"Aw, Sakura-chan..."

Gaara said nothing. He had pressed himself into a corner as far away from the two of them as possible, and looked like he might implode if anyone touched him. His lips were pressed into a thin, tight line. It made things just a little more uncomfortable.

She thought about their spar yesterday and felt a squirm of embarrassment.

Roughly five minutes later Naruto apparently remembered he was prone to boughts of sea-sickness, because he heaved up his breakfast over the edge of the small, small boat. Things became a bit _more_ uncomfortable.

When the boat bumped up to a dock they scrambled out. Gaara walked, looking at them like they were retarded. Naruto stood up and sucked in a huge lungful of air, then promptly threw up again. Gaara and Sakura waited.

"So what's the...what's the plan?" He asked weakly, emerging from a nearby trash can.

"Let's...oh, let's go eat," Sakura sighed. She was tired and burnt out from walking all day, and the boat ride had finished it. She wanted to rest. Especially considering she was going to be the only one handling all the diplomatic issues. Gaara would be, too, but she couldn't count on him to complain first...frankly, she couldn't count on him to complain at all.

"Okay," Naruto agreed brightly, and it was as if he had never been vomiting up his intestines in the first place.

Wave's economic situation was definitely improving – the shops were lively and the people didn't look even remotely emaciated. They found a quiet-looking bar and slipped into a removed booth. Naruto left and then came back with some kind of something filled with meat.

Sakura took the liberty of rolling out the newly-purchased map on the table's scanty available space, her comrades being more preoccupied with their food than she was. She really would have preferred something more vegetable-esque, and if they went crazy with it, a more nutritious source of carbohydrates. But beggars couldn't be choosers. And when you were visiting a not long ago war-torn country, you were a beggar. Albeit, one with a map.

"So, we're over here," she said, pointing. "And we need to check in...here."

Gaara spared a glance at where her finger indicated for confirmation. He nodded to show he understood, and went back to methodically tearing bits of bread/carcass off from his dumpling thingies with his long, pale fingers and placing them in his mouth. She spent a vaguely curious moment watching him. There was something distinctly possessive in the way he ate. She wondered if he had ever gone hungry as a child, and some unknown part of her sighed with remorse. He must have experienced a magnitude of incomprehensible things before she was even old enough to enter the academy. She briefly wondered what he would say if she asked him about any of it.

But Naruto intervened before she could put that inane thought into action. Lip jutted out, palms flat on the table, he leaned his face endearingly close to hers. "Sakura-_chan_..."

She gave him a bored look. "What?"

"_Why _do we have to go check in with a bunch of old farts as soon as we get here? I wanna find the place we're staying at."

"We have to let them know we're here so they don't go blowing up a bunch of villages trying to find us." Honestly, they'd had this conversation before.

But she agreed with him. She didn't want to go talk with a bunch of old farts either. She wanted to rest. And if wherever they were sleeping had running water, well, bonus. She very well might just have an orgasm.

"Oh, come on, they're not going to miss us for another day or two," he wheedled.

"We need to check in first."

After this Gaara said nothing, still busily deteriorating his meal, and she was reminded that she was in charge of resolving these kinds of things. She had never been particularly good at settling arguments, but she was freaking Ghandi compared to these people. She sighed and rested her chin on her fist, reminding herself not to tug on her bangs out of irritation.

"Naruto, why don't you go find the Inn. Gaara and I will check in, and then we'll meet up with you."

She briefly glanced at Gaara, willing him to offer to go alone, but he remained stagnantly unhelpful, his only consention to what she'd just said being his lack of protest. Disappointed, she leaned back in her seat and started on her fast-cooling lunch.

"Hey. Maybe we'll see Inari," Naruto said, brightening.

She struggled to recall the pudgy, dark-eyed face. And then she remembered Sasuke. She shifted, unconsciously curling into herself.

She hoped they didn't.

--

"You don't like Inari."

She frowned and didn't look at him, pace unfaltered. She shouldn't have been surprised, really – he was alive because he was observant. She was just so used to hanging around Naruto that she didn't bother trying to hide anything anymore.

It was...disconcerting, that she might have to get back into the habit.

"No," she said dismissively. "Inari's fine."

His eyes glanced at her for the first time since they had split up from Naruto, and though she knew he wasn't going to push her, it was apparent he was waiting for an explanation.

"Inari looked like Sasuke."

"Oh."

He seemed a little more discontent than he had been before, and she edgily wondered if he would still try to kill Sasuke on sight if he ever saw him again. And if Sasuke would return the favor.

Depressingly enough, the answer was obvious. Or at least, half of it was.

"It's just a little difficult for me to think about him sometimes," she said, staring at the overcast sky. She was talking too much, she knew, but Gaara's (currently) quiet presence was so soothing that she couldn't seem to stop. Who could she possibly tell these things to in Konoha? Tsunade would tell her to get over it, or something equally unsympathetic, and she would never dream of hurting Naruto so much. And in some perverse, bizarre way, she took comfort in the fact that Gaara probably considered her problems so insignificant in comparison to his that they didn't matter. "That ever happen with you?"

He was quiet for a long time. "No," he said finally.

She didn't have anything to say to that. Gaara didn't make any effort to bring the conversation back up, and neither did she.

Wave's diplomatic offices were reasonably well-established – considering the council was still squabbling over things like leadership rights, anyway. They were nothing but a cluster of tidy gray brick buildings in the center of the village, but just the fact that they existed was a hopeful sign. Perhaps they wouldn't even need to discuss much at all; maybe they would just have to say hello and then be free to go home.

Maybe.

The waiting room was empty aside from a small, professional looking leather couch and a desk. The woman sitting there gave them a disdainful once-over, reminding Sakura that she _really needed _fresh clothes. Shampoo wouldn't hurt, either.

"Names?" Her voice wasn't particularly friendly. Sakura hadn't really expected it to be.

"Acting ambassadors Gaara of Suna and Haruno Sakura of Konoha. Reporting in." If Gaara was unimpressed with what Wave had to offer, he didn't show it. His voice was dispassionate as ever. Sakura mentally compared him to the subtly manic, unpredictable person he had been when she first arrived in Suna.

The woman's eyes lingered on him for a few seconds longer than was necessary. Then she said "Just a moment," in a considerably more polite tone and left through a small, unremarkable door to her left.

Sakura, after some petty internal debate, seated herself on the edge of the severe couch. Loveseat. Whatever.

Gaara remained standing, and she tried to pretend this didn't make her uncomfortable. Honestly, she'd been traveling around with him for just over a week, she should have been used to his...tendencies by now. Or at least learned to anticipate them. She mentally struggled for something to say.

"Hey...I think that lady likes you."

In her haste to makes things less awkward, she had talked to like he had been Ino.

"...likes me?"

She was regretting having said anything, but she made herself answer him anyway. "Yeah...I mean _like_ like."

He just looked at her. For someone who was so observant, he could be really dense when he wanted to. "I don't understand."

"Romantic like."

By this time the tiny idea of _this might be funny _was long gone, replaced by _this was just stupid _and _this has made things _more _awkward_. She tugged on a lock of hair, wishing the romantically liking lady would just come back. Seriously, what was taking her so long?

Gaara snorted. "She holds no interest for me."

And he looked straight at her.

Before she could even begin to scramble for a reply, the secretary walked back in and gestured toward the door. "The council will see you now."

Sakura stood and went to Gaara's side, mind still spinning from their stilted conversation. They walked together down a short hallway and into a small room. Four middle-aged men stood clustered beside a long conference table. Sakura knew her mental assessment had been correct the moment she saw them – crotchedy old men.

"Kazekage-sama," one greeted briskly. His voice was rough. "Haruno-san."

She murmured back a reply and heard Gaara do the same.

"We're pleased that you got here unharmed." He smiled thinly. "I trust nothing unexpected happened?"

Gaara's face remained perfectly straight.

"Nothing at all."

--

As it turned out, they could _not_ just say hello and leave – they had some heavy negotiating to do. Luckily, it was going to wait until tomorrow.

The Inn where they were staying, as they discovered, had been gracious enough to provide them with three separate rooms, each one connected to a dingy but functional bathroom. They gathered in Naruto's.

"I don't think we should mention the seal," she said immediately. The tedious pace and fake pleasantries of the past hour had worn on her, and she was a step away from being outright irritated. "These people wouldn't hesitate to report us."

"Tsunade wouldn't get us in any trouble..."

She shook her head. "No, we experimented on the Kazekage. Tsunade can be overpowered...I'm not saying it was a mistake," she said quickly, noticing the subtle shift in Gaara's expression. "I just think we should keep quiet about it."

"Maybe," Gaara said. "But you shouldn't worry. It would be difficult to overpower the Hokage _and_ me."

"Yes, but let's just agree not to push it."

Gaara shrugged, which she took to mean he would. She bit her lip. "So...how's it holding up?"

"I can't...hear him anymore."

The way he said it made it sound like he wasn't particularly happy about this. She and Naruto exchanged sidelong glances. "And this...worries you?"

"I don't know what he's thinking."

Which, considerably, was a substantial concern, she supposed. "But there's no way that what we did could give him more control over you than he had originally, right?"

"I don't think so."

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Naruto said, rolling his eyes.

Gaara seemed to think otherwise, but he didn't say anything.

"Gaara," she said slowly. "Do you think it's possible that when the Akatsuki tried to draw the Shukaku out, your original seal was damaged?"

"I've considered it," he said quietly. His tone had changed, gone back to cooly detached. She recognized the dismissal. Actually, she was surprised he had talked to them for as long as he had. She climbed to her feet and Naruto did the same.

None of them really slept much.

--

So, you see, Deidara is dead in the manga. Let us assume he is secretly alive.


	6. Old People and Delicate Situations

This was originally titled 'In Which there are Old People and Explosions.' Which, frankly, is a much cooler title than the current one. But it didn't fit the chapter after I edited everything. Gosh darn!

* * *

Sakura had stopped paying attention roughly twenty minutes ago. The counsel didn't seem particularly happy with her being there, and went out of their way to exclude her from the discussion unless completely necessary. Which in all likelihood meant they were sexist. Or that they had a problem with her shorts or something (like it was their business how much thigh she showed). In any case, Gaara seemed to have a smooth handle on things, and she let him take over, not really in the mood to press her authority.

Listening to Wave's Counsel talk was kind of like visiting an old folk's home. In all honesty, shinobi rarely lived long enough to be rewarded with wrinkles and senility, but there were always exceptions. Sakura watched The-Guy-Who-Talked-The-Most's mouth open and close, and felt detachedly fascinated.

Yeah, I was in the war and lost _three of my limbs_, and the one that didn't get blown off had to be amputated. We didn't have any fancy kunai either, we used what we could find on the ground or our _bare hands_.

She blinked slowly and felt that she should probably pretend to be something remotely similar to an adult, and she really would have if his lips weren't so _goddamn hypnotic _in the way they flapped around when he talked. Hey, she could almost imagine he didn't have teeth.

Where the fuck is my applesauce?

She fought a snicker.

_Where the fuck is my applesauce? _

Oh. Oh, wait, he was talking to her. What? Crap. Shit.

Gaara saved her. "That isn't a fair request. Konoha is still recovering from the invasion. It's in no position to offer financial aid."

She scrambled to get a hold on the conversation. "That's – that's right," she said quickly. "Our economy is struggling as it is, there's really no way we could handle the strain."

The one she had been staring at clenched his jaw – he clearly had teeth, sadly – and tried to smile at her. What, was she not supposed to talk back? "Surely, if Suna cannot offer us any help, the great Konoha can. From what we can see, your country is fairly wealthy."

"We don't have many starving people or mafia infestations, no," she said politely. "But we _are_ still trying to repair the damage, and it's very likely we'll be attacked by Sound a second time. I'm sorry, but I have to decline."

The one next to him, Asshole (who really was missing some teeth), impatiently blew a lungful of air through his pursed lips. She debated whether she should ignore him or not. Really, these people made her look like a princess.

He addressed his fellows, irritatingly pretending she and Gaara were deaf. "Are we really going to accept her word for the Hokage's? She's just a child."

She chose _not_ to ignore him, glaring stonily into the side of his face. "I'm her apprentice." Jackass.

He waved her justifications away impatiently, still not looking at her even though they were sitting right next to each other, and she seriously considered reaching out and snapping his hand in half. She had some qualms about Gaara thinking she was an immature maniac, though (even though she was fully aware he was right on her side), so she retrained herself.

He turned to Gaara to unleash some bitchiness on him, too. "And_ he_ is even younger than her. You think we should trust his judgment?"

That jumped up little bastard.

"How many criminals have you killed?" She snarled, patience snapping like a twig in the face of such blatant disrespect. They had been perfectly civilized yesterday, when they were under the impression they had _money_. "You don't trust us because we're _young_?"

"How _dare_ you – "

"It isn't a matter of age," Gaara stepped in before the situation escalated into violence, and Sakura had it put on her personal record that she had murdered a senior. His voice held a curt edge that let her know he was just as ruffled as she was, though. "Neither of us have the money. End of story."

"No, not end of story," he spat. "We cannot accept your refusals!"

And Sakura immediately realized that he had gone one sentence too close to a threat, because the atmosphere changed as suddenly as if a switch had flipped off. Gaara's chakra roiled outward, enveloping the room. "Are you suggesting," he said slowly, lips peeling back into a freakish imitation of a grin that showed too many teeth to be natural, "...war?"

She felt an automatic lurch of fear. He was gone. He was_ this close _to being gone, she could feel it. One more nudge, and the room would turn into a slaughterhouse. She turned wide eyes on him. His chakra, usually so trim and reserved, was radiating off him in waves, hitting her with the force of a steamroller and making her breath hitch. There was too much, she was drowning in it, while her instincts screamed death.

It had just taken a sentence for him to slip.

She finally realized who she was dealing with. Who she had started to remotely consider a friend. Who she had made herself inerringly killable to on more than one occasion.

Who had yet to hurt her.

"Gaara."

His eyes snapped to her, surprised, and his grin abruptly fell, leaving him looking shockingly vulnerable. They stared at each other for one agonizing second, and it seemed like all the fear, so easily pushed beneath the surface while they were traipsing around the desert or making half-assed seals with Naruto, was bubbling out and they couldn't control it. Then a counsel man – one who really hadn't said much the entire meeting – said something, and the moment was shattered and the pretense was back up.

"What?" Gaara snapped, obviously only halfway paying attention. She could see him seething, feel the self-hatred and disappointment and struggle for control.

"We never implied...taking it by force, Kazekage-sama. As you can see, Wave is really in no position..."

He trailed off when Gaara remained unresponsive. They looked terrified. All four of them were instinctively leaning away, looking like they might make a break for it. She silently prayed they wouldn't. Their best bet right now was to stay perfectly still.

She knew they would remember every second of what had just transpired with brilliant detail. They would report it.

"All right. Meeting over, then. We'll leave before sunset." She stood up and waited for Gaara to stiffly do the same, and they sped out without a backwards glance. The bitchy receptionist watched them leave.

She pulled him over next to a small fruit cart as soon as the building was out of sight, and gave him a frantic once-over. "What the hell was that!"

"I _told_ you," he hissed, face contorting abruptly. "Do you believe me now? Do you _get it?_"

She crossed her arms and gave him her best 'be honest' glower. "How close were you to killing every person in there?"

He opened his mouth – to growl at her some more, she guessed – faltered, and changed his mind. "I could have stopped myself."

"You're sure."

He looked at her for a long time, brow creasing. "Yes," he said eventually.

She breathed a sigh. "Good." She uncrossed her arms and tugged on her bangs, her habitual reaction to stress. "Okay. Okay, all you did was smile at them, they can't turn that into anything," she muttered rapidly, half to herself. "And they threatened you, so you were perfectly justified...It should be fine. We're fine."

He let out a breathy little laugh that had her skin crawling, tinged as it was with derisive not-quite insanity. But she made herself not react, because he was right. He was not fine. He was so far from fine it made her ache.

"Gaara..."

He twitched like she had physically touched him, lowering his turbulent gaze from somewhere over her head back to her eyes. It only took one long stride to reach him and get right in his face, they had been standing unusually close anyways, and he didn't have any time to react before she was hugging him, toned arms wrapping around his chest and clutching him to her. She felt him stiffen in shock or confusion, she didn't know which. She pressed her face into his shoulder and held him tighter, trying to give him some semblance of comfort.

"Are you hugging me?"

"...yeah."

"_Why?_"

"Shut up and hug me back."

She felt his hands settle on her waist with the hesitant lightness of someone who expected the other person to pull away, and it made her feel sad all over again. Then he suddenly crushed her to him in a fit of abrupt desperation that had her feet leaving the ground.

They stayed like that for a while.

She let him go first, because the fruit vendor was starting to look at them funny. And it would undoubtedly cause an uproar if it got back to their countries that they were embracing in the middle of a street. Politics and emotions were a sticky, dirty business that screwed more people over than it helped.

She smiled at him a little shakily, not moving from where he had let her back down. "Sorry. I know you don't like being touched."

He was staring straight at her, not even trying to pretend that things were normal, eyes full of cautious wonder. "I never said that."

And if, as they returned to the hotel, they walked a little closer to each other than usual, well, who the hell was going to notice?

* * *

Holy shit. Holy shit, what did she want from him?

It was all he could do to keep his eyes stuck to what was in front of him. They were begging to roam all over the kunoichi next to him. Maybe if he stared hard enough he would figure out the answer.

A motive. She had to have one. He was reformed, but he wasn't stupid. Assassination was out, nobody wanted another war (though she was probably stoutly patriotic enough to go through with it if the Hokage asked her). Did she want something from him? A favor? Did she want him to kill someone for her?

Her hand accidentally bumped his, and she jerked it away, flushing. His mind went careening in a whole new direction. Did she not like touching him anymore? Why the hell not? What had he done in the past five minutes to change her mind?

He wanted her to touch him again, never mind her motives. Being touched was wonderful.

It didn't occur to him that hadn't worried about his mental state the entire way to the hotel. That had pretty much fled his mind the second she had come into contact with him. He only realized when Naruto asked why they were leaving.

"Things just got a little...edgy," Sakura explained, circling her room and throwing things haphazardly into her bag.

Naruto followed her, crystal eyes flicking to Gaara and back. "How edgy?"

"Edgy enough that they'll never threaten him again," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"They threatened you? Really?"

"They want financial aid," Gaara said, leaning against the wall a safe distance away from them with his arms crossed. "They implied taking it by force."

"What are they gonna do?" Naruto snorted, clearly unperturbed. "Attack us with their nonexistent shinobi?"

"We don't know who their allies are. That was kind of the point of coming. But if they can't talk like _adults_..." She trailed off scornfully.

"Geeze, they sound like total assholes."

Well, that was Naruto. Taking everything in stride. Come dangerously close to an explosion of ripped out intestines? Eh. No big.

"They are. And that's exactly what I'm going to tell Tsunade. I'm going to say, 'Shishou, Wave's leaders are total assholes, and we should not offer them any help.' And she'll take my advice and we'll never visit again."

"She's not going to like that..."

"If _she_ were the one talking to them, she would have ended up breaking a table," she huffed. "I did pretty well for myself." She stepped back and surveyed the room, hands on her hips. "Am I missing anything?"

"There's a scroll under the night stand," Naruto said helpfully, pointing.

She tossed that into her bag as well, then zipped it up and slung it onto her back.

They left as inconspicuously as possible. Naruto was all for sneaking out the windows, but that idea was quickly rejected after Sakura pointed out that if they weren't already under suspicion, getting caught skulking around would definitely do the trick. Gaara was frankly, if not silently, on Naruto's side. In the ten or so seconds he had fantasized about bloody, exposed organs protruding from bellies connected to human faces, he had ruined any chance he might have had at making a good first impression.

Apologizing was out of the question. They needed to pretend like nothing was wrong, like the counsel was just a bunch of crazy old men who were too wrapped up in their own prejudices to see him clearly. They needed to _lie_, and he hated it and himself and the horrible twisting feeling in his gut, because those stupid old men were probably right. He was more unfit to lead Suna than he had ever been. They were right, and he was going to deny it even though he knew it was true.

There was no going back. He had screwed up too badly for that.

But there was no sense in tempting fate. They used the door.

* * *

wtf, Hug? Where did you come from? Why did you carve your way into my chapter?

WOAH, I updated again. Man, I'm on a roll.


	7. Explosions

Hey, didn't that bitch promise she would update faster? Where is she?

God, I love you people. You are SO patient. Anyway, that bitch was busy doing a super huge re-edit. My stories all tend to start out embarrassingly weak and then gradually climb the Quality Writing scale, so I figured that before moving forward I should go back and fix the not-so-great parts.

And I'm still not done. :(

But I'm getting there!

I was also helplessly distracted by that shiny Yugioh fandom once again. (This time it was Kaibacest. #&#!)

(...AND I was going crazy with finals. geometrywtf.)

* * *

How did you write an honest psychoanalysis while trying not to incriminate the subject?

There were laws against this. If pushed, it could be considered treason. And treason had some of the worst repercussions imaginable. It ranked right up there with genocide.

Sakura had, in general, always considered herself a good shinobi, even when she really wasn't. She obeyed orders. She carried her weight. She stuck to the mission plan.

She did not lie to the Hokage.

Shinobi did _not_ lie to the Hokage.

Yet here she was, attempting to stretch the truth to the breaking point while convincing herself she wasn't. She hesitantly brought her pen to her paper.

_We left Thursday morning, and traveled until nightfall. We set up camp right behind the border, then continued on in the morning. We took a short break in the afternoon. After more traveling, we camped again. The next day we arrived in Suna as scheduled, but left a day late due to Gaara's prompting. We then..._

Stayed up all night using euphemisms for death?

_...camped the night, and left early the next morning. I realized that Gaara was having trouble sleeping, so I – _

Almost died?

She threw her pen to the ground in frustration. How was she going to get around the _seal?_

She thought for a few moments, tapping her fingers impatiently against her arms, then hesitantly picked her pen back up.

– _used pressure points to knock him out_.

She stared at her neat, precise handwriting. That was a _lie_.

Well, not entirely, but she had just deliberately skipped a good chunk of what was most likely a defining backbone to Gaara's current state of mind.

Shit, what was she going to_ do_?

She couldn't incriminate Gaara, not when he was obviously struggling so hard for control. It went against her entire nature. Because when it came down to it, she would never be the World's Perfect Shinobi. She would always choose human nature over shinobi rule one-oh-one, no matter who the person was. It was just the way she was.

But. She was a shinobi, one way or another, and she had a duty to fulfill.

It was just severely unfortunate that her duty and her human nature had to contradict each other like this.

She had chewed four of her fingernails to the quick and was halfway down her fifth when Naruto plopped down beside her onto her sparse grass patch.

"Still not done?" He asked. "I finished mine half an hour ago."

"What did you put for the seal?"

"Oh, I just skipped that part."

Sakura's hopes died as quickly as they had come, and she sighed. "We can't do this, you know."

"Why not?" He shrugged. "I trust Gaara, and I know Tsunade does. It's his own country that's the problem."

"I know," she said wearily. "I trust him too. But that doesn't change the fact that he is in trouble, whether we like it or not. That puts Suna in danger."

Naruto gave her a sideways look. "Yeah, but what do _you_ think?"

"I..." She trailed off, then sighed. "I think he would rather die than hurt Suna. But that's just my point. He may not have a choice."

"That makes sense, I guess," Naruto said tiredly. "...I don't know what to do, Sakura-chan."

She closed her eyes and shifted until she was close enough to rest her head on his shoulder. He obligingly wrapped an arm around her. "Neither do I," she whispered.

They sat in silence a few moments, Sakura's mission report lying open and unfinished in front of them.

"By the way, have you _seen_ Gaara?"

Her eyes opened. "What do you mean?"

"Well, he wandered off a while ago, and I haven't really seen him all morning."

"_What?_"

Naruto blinked in surprise. "He's not going to run away or anything."

"Naruto, it's our job to guard him!" She said, scrabbling to her feet. Naruto's arm dropped from the empty space where she had been to the ground. "We can't just let him _drift off._"

Naruto didn't look convinced. "I doubt he needs our protection..."

Privately, she agreed, but she quelled that train of thought and brought her focus back to the current situation. It didn't matter if he needed them or not, they had done enough fucking around with the rules already. And there was the off-chance that Gaara might encounter something beyond his ability to handle – in which case she and Naruto probably weren't going to be much help, but that was irrelevant.

She also didn't like the idea of Gaara skulking around the forest, stewing in his own self-hatred. In truth, he was probably going to stew whether she was with him or not, but the idea of him doing it alone still grated on her. She needed to find him.

Although, he was probably masking his chakra if he had any common sense at all..."Which way did he go?" She asked.

Naruto screwed up his face in thought, then pointed vaguely. "That way, I think."

Well, this probably meant she was going to spend most of her morning stumbling around looking for him, but she didn't mind. It wasn't like they were in a hurry...due to them high-tailing it out of their destination a day early.

"Watch camp, okay?" She said over her shoulder, turning to leave.

"Sure..."

She took to the trees, figuring she should probably enjoy them before they hit desert again. Maybe, while she was darting among the foliage and not wracking her brain for an answer, inspiration would hit her.

Or maybe not. Maybe she would just go ahead and do her job, and tell the truth. It was certainly what she had been trained to do.

Then she remembered Gaara, and his heartbreaking expression as he abruptly realized what he had been on the very verge of doing, and felt a lump rise in her own throat. She swallowed it down angrily. Betrayal. That's what she would be doing.

Betraying Gaara would be like...well, betraying Naruto. Tsunade, Kakashi. Sasuke. She wasn't quite sure when that had happened – when she had come to associate Gaara with her own precious people, her life. Not on the hotel roof. All she could collect from that memory was a general sense of curiosity sparked with irritation.

Maybe the moment she felt the compulsory need to embrace him, try to channel some of his hurt into her own, less full being? The moment he lost all pretense and clung to her with the desperation of a starving child?

Or perhaps earlier than that. Perhaps her connection to him stretched even further back, to the moment she jumped in front of him armed with a kunai, of all things, and even underneath all the terror and mad desire to protect had locked eyes with him, and suddenly comprehended the loneliness, the hopeless fight against himself...

She didn't know. She did know one thing.

_She could not do this to him_.

And as she thought that, not really at all paying attention to what she was doing, she was suddenly struck down from the air.

It took her a shocked second, distracted as she was, to realize that she had been attacked, and by that time she was already pinned to a nearby tree trunk – when on earth had she gotten so close to the ground? – and frustratingly helpless.

Then it occurred to her that whatever was pinning her had a quite _sandy_ texture, and the nearby presence was quite achingly familiar.

"It's just me," she called, pleased at how even her voice came out. It was a very direct contradiction to her pounding heart and rushing adrenaline.

Gaara suddenly appeared beside her, looking more surprised than anything. His eyes were wide, nostrils flared. One arm was half-raised in her direction, fingers curled. He stared at her wordlessly for a few seconds, and she let him, waiting. Then he let all his breath out in one long whoosh of air and dropped his stance. The sand slithered down with it.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking away.

"It's okay," she said quickly. "I surprised you; it was a natural reaction."

He seemed to think this was a strange thing for her to say, and she was once again reminded of the stark difference between their definitions of natural, but he didn't comment. She hadn't really expected him to.

"What are you doing out here?" She asked, hurriedly changing the subject. "I've been worried about you."

"I told Naruto where I was going."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it any safer," she said. "What if you were attacked? Or you...you injured yourself?"

He didn't deem her an answer to that last one, so she decided to just drop it. Obviously Gaara was just as worried about his well-being as he was about what colors went well with his skin tone.

Although, he did seem to be worried about _something_, with his tense posture and averted eyes. She watched him, oblivious to how awkward it might have looked to an outsider – them just standing there, not saying anything – and finally just gave up. He wasn't going to vent his problems to her of his own free will. He just wasn't that kind of person.

So instead, she told the truth. "We have to write a report," she said quietly. "About you."

He still wouldn't meet her gaze. "I know."

"It has to be honest."

Again, "I know."

"I haven't written mine yet."

He didn't say anything, which she had anticipated. Gaara had always been of few words, and unless someone said something that outright obliged a reply, he wasn't likely to. It was more like him to just silently mull over what someone was saying to him than poke and prod them for their direct point. And he was doing just this now, squinting off into the distance as he picked over her implications.

Frankly, it wasn't the silence that irritated her. She was used to that. It was his unwillingness to look at her. He usually stared straight at her when they talked...or even if they weren't. This felt like he was brushing her off, ignoring her.

Closing her out.

She felt a ripple of anger course through her and clenched her jaw, stalking forward. Bull _shit_. They had been through too much for him to go back to the way they were before, pretending they were just faint acquaintances. It was too late for that now.

He doubtless sensed her coming – he definitely heard her – but he still didn't acknowledge her presence until she reached out and grabbed his chin with her bare fingers, jerking his face towards her. She pulled him down until she was _way _beyond the borders of personal space and could feel his breath puffing across her nose, and scowled.

"I am _not_ screwing you over," she growled. "I don't give a damn about being honest. Honestly can go fuck itself."

He stared down at her (_finally_) and furrowed his brow. "You have to," he said simply, working to talk around her fingers.

"No I _don't_," she insisted fiercly. Honestly, most people would be cowering by now. He didn't look remotely intimidated. (Although their proximity seemed to have him a little stupefied.)

He slowly enclosed her hand in both of his own, gently prying her fingers from around his jaw. She expected him to drop it, but he didn't, just stood there touching her. Looking down at her. Still bent towards her. Suddenly she was the one overly aware of how close they were. "Yes, you do," he said quietly.

She felt the lump in her throat rise again, and didn't bother this time to try and get rid of it. She looked up into his quiet, resigned eyes and felt all the anger leave her in a rush. "Why?" She asked brokenly.

"I'm not safe. For Suna. For _anyone_."

"But you are!" She argued, shaking her head. "Gaara, you're the best leader Suna's had in years. Why can't you realize that?"

"That doesn't matter. There are plenty of other leaders." He paused to close his eyes and breath slowly in and out. "Say whatever you have to."

"Well, what are you going to do when you're not Kazekage?" She demanded. "You'll still be in Suna one way or another, so does it really matter what rank you have?"

"Sakura," he said flatly. "I'm going to leave."

The finality of his voice was stifling. She sucked in a surprised gasp. She couldn't comprehend it. He was giving in – he was going to give up everything because other people _thought_ he was dangerous. He was damning himself to isolation. How could he...?

"You _can't_," she whispered.

"I can."

"Dammit, Gaara!" She jerked her hand back away from him to clench it into a fist. Seeing his just-got-slapped expression she immediately regretted it, but continued on anyways. "You can't do this. What about your siblings? They _love_ you. What about Naruto? He...he loves you too! What about – what about – "

She broke off, because it had only occurred to her as she almost said it.

What _about_ her?

She was still marveling, stunned, at this borderline revelation when he spoke, drawing her attention back outward.

"Did you notice," he said blackly. "The way I attacked you ten minutes ago?"

"Yeah, because I startled you," she said impatiently. "It was my fault."

"I wouldn't have done that a month ago."

"I don't _care_ – "

"I'm sorry."

She was shocked into silence. He straightened, no doubt because his back was starting to hurt from hunching over so long. She watched him with wide eyes, desperately searching for something to say, some earth-shattering logic that would change his mind.

There was nothing.

"Gaara,_ please_," she pleaded.

His breath caught, and when he spoke his voice sounded almost halting, as if he was losing some of his resolve. "Sakura – "

He was interrupted by an ear-splitting bang, and they instinctively grabbed each other to steady themselves as the earth rippled and shook underneath them. She let out a small cry of surprise, then whipped her head around frantically, trying to ascertain what had happened. She glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye and focused.

Far in the distance, where she had just come from, thick black smoke curled into the air.

She screamed.


	8. Reality as it Is

OMG YOU GAIZ. DDDDDD:

…can I…reiterate that I LOVE YOU ALL SO FUCKING MUCH? I spent a good chunk of my morning reading over all the reviews for this monster. All the helpful advice and praise and assurance that I provided you with lulz and aghitmakesmybrainhurtfromthepleasure. Oh bebes, I'll take quality over quantity any day.

For those of you still reading and wondering where the fuck I've gone, rest assured. The story's still going, I'm not ditching it. It's my favorite thing to write, actually. I'm still rewriting it. Probably the whole thing, maybe the latest two or so chapters will remain intact. I'm not going to start replacing the old chapters on this site until I finish writing all of them, because then some stuff wouldn't make sense, because I'm not really following the outlines word for word. Same shit's happening, different details.

If you want to read the revised chapters as I finish them you can get them on my livejournal. (btw yeah, I'm shamelessly pimping it. GO THERE.) And I actually didn't intend to update until the entire story was revised, buuuut I feel bad, and I've been dying to write this chapter since forever, and last night while babysitting I got the urge to write…a lot, so here you go. I hope it's enough to tide you over until I finish rewriting everything. Um. MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU GUYS.

* * *

"_Naruto!_"

She let go of Gaara's shirt to lurch forward, throat tight and constricted and she couldn't breath _she needed to run run run_ – and felt something close around her arm, holding her in place, keeping her from running she needed to move –

"Wait."

Outrage surged through her, hot and heady, bottoming out the sudden hollowness of her stomach and burning through some of the hysteria. He was _holding her back_? How fucking dare he, her teammate was in danger _Naruto_ was in danger, how dare he make her lose time –

She whipped around to face him, snarling. Rage, rage, and she suddenly wasn't very aware of their accumulated friendship at all – "Get the _fuck _off me." She had to get to Naruto, couldn't he see that? She didn't care if he was the Kazekage, she didn't care that she was supposed to be protecting him. The explosion was still ringing in her ears and she could smell the smoke now, choking her. Her mind was racing, thoughts crashing and careening around and bouncing off of each other along with a thrumming sense of panic, terror, and it was going to be too much if she couldn't move.

He faced her with all the stoic stubbornness she'd become accustomed to. "No. Just listen – "

She didn't listen, she whipped her fist forward at breakneck speed to cave his face in. His sand caught it, she'd known it would and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she should be jotting it down – _Shukaku could still protect him even when he was sealed, how interesting_ – but who the fuck cared about Shukaku now?

"I said let _go of me!_" she shrieked, and she was sounding progressively less threatening and more like a cornered animal, but she couldn't help it. She was on the verge of hyperventilation; was he just going to hold her here while they killed Naruto? What was _wrong_ with him?

"Calm down," he told her, and she felt her lips peeling back, felt herself bare her teeth at him. "If you run into a group of Akatsuki in the state you are now – " He'd said it. She'd been thinking it, but he'd said it, and it made her throat numb. " – you're going to die."

He said it so simply, so – and then she stared at him, really looked at him, and saw the muted panic in his wide eyes and flared nostrils, and realized he was scared too. He was scared too.

It was like being slapped. She sucked in a deep breath, gasping. "Gaara, I'm calm, believe me, I'm calmreally – "

She was babbling. She broke off and just breathed, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to ignore the jerky quivering of her legs, the all-encompassing instinct to just _go, help_. Gaara squeezed her captured wrist gently, and her eyes snapped up to stare at him for one long, unreadable moment, brow furrowed.

"Gaara," she rasped. "Gaara, _please_ – "

"Mask your chakra."

He released her, and that was all the incentive she needed. They hit the tree line sprinting.

She outstripped him after about a minute, and could hear the fight after a minute more, bangs and yells that made her go all that much faster, pumping chakra freely into her legs, she could conserve it later…

Someone suddenly dropped onto the branch in front of her and she hurtled to a stop, staring at him.

"Tobi's sorry Miss, but senpai told Tobi to keep you away and Tobi – "

She sent him flying into a tree with a roar and started to continue on her damn well way. Halfway through a crouch she paused, indecision tearing her horribly between getting to Naruto and not letting Gaara run head-on into an Akatsuki she had most likely only managed to hit out of luck.

Then Gaara came hurtling into her line of vision and she could have cried with relief. The Akatsuki member – Tobi – twitched but didn't get up. He was most likely in shock; and that probably wasn't going to last long but _damn_ was she amazing, ploughing an Akatsuki into a tree like that –

Gaara caught up with her and she pushed off her branch to keep pace beside him, feeding off her adrenaline. She didn't like turning her back on an opponent, much less one that she knew wasn't out of commission yet, but they couldn't stop to fight him and she couldn't let Gaara go on alone, so she settled for keeping her senses sharp and pushing herself to her limit to put as much distance between them as possible.

It didn't help, but that didn't matter because they burst into the clearing where they'd set up camp, and there was Naruto, feral and red-eyed as he sprung out of the way of a small explosion that quaked the ground. A new sense of frozen shock overwhelmed her, along with a rush of limb-weakening relief that he was _alive_, he was _okay_…

But apparently she wasn't going to be having any time to be weak-limbed, because the present Akatsuki – on a fucking bird, _what_ – noticed them with a glance of his strikingly blue eyes and, just as casually, flicked a piece of clay her way.

She belatedly remembered just what his clay did a half-second before a tendril of sand shot forward to snatch it out of the air before it connected with her face, engulfing it. She stupidly watched as the sand expanded slightly and then receded, smoking, and then she had to move, because Tobi was back in the fray.

"Deidara-senpai Tobi's sorry he knows senpai told him to hold off the other two while he took care of the Kyuubi but Miss hit Tobi and Tobi doesn't like to hit girls senpai – "

"Shut up!" Deidara roared, and Tobi paused as if flustered. Sakura, knowing an opportunity when she saw one, dashed forward and flung her foot out to snap-kick him in the chin, leaving Deidara to Gaara and Naruto. She didn't have any jutsu to reach him when he was up in the air like that anyway; she wouldn't be any help.

Tobi caught it this time, quirking his head at her in what could have been a surprised kind of way. She spun her body and switched her weight onto her hands, twisting her foot out of his grip and quickly flipping away to put several feet of distance between them, regarding him warily. She had to be careful with this guy. It didn't matter if he talked like a ten-year-old. He was dangerous and she wouldn't be catching him by surprise again.

He tilted his head the other way, and she imagined that if she could see his face he would look curious. "Tobi…supposes he could hit a girl, if she fights like a boy."

She really didn't have any business getting intimidated in the middle of a life or death battle, but something about his tone, the way he said _hit_ the same way a lot of people said _kill_, mixed with his unnerving childlike simplicity was throwing her off. She could hear the other three fighting behind her, trees crashing down all over the place and Deidara's edging-on-hysterical laughter mingling with Naruto's enraged shouts and Gaara's…well, Gaara was pretty quiet. She could hear his sand whipping around, though, and it provided her with some semblance of reassurance through all the blood rushing through her ears. They would be okay. They had fought worse. The only difference was –

The only difference was that they didn't have Kakashi, or Chiyo, or any of the other people who usually kept them alive. Her stomach squelched.

Still, these motherfuckers were after one of _her_ teammates, and they were associated with the reason one of _her _teammates had gotten so fucked up, and now they wanted Gaara too, and she didn't know what to think about that except that it was really easy to feel pissed.

She bared her teeth. "I fight like a _man_, fucker."

"…Miss talks like senpai. Are you friends?"

She slammed her heel into the ground and was shooting forward before he was even finished stumbling at the sudden bulging and rippling of the ground underneath him. He still caught the fist she swung at him, but her foot followed quickly and undercut his jaw, snapping his head back. She surged chakra into her index and middle fingers, jabbing at his neck.

He caught her wrist and pulled her towards him before she even had time to resist, keeping his hold on her other hand. She was caught entirely unawares when he heaved her over his head and threw her. So unawares that she hit the ground in a very un-ninja-like sprawl. What was he…who _did_ that? It didn't deal any serious damage and it left him completely vulnerable – was he just stupid or what?

"Tobi's sorry, Miss! Tobi doesn't want to hurt you but you're making him!"

She had barely gotten to her feet and started forward to rip the demeaning little shit a new one when her left side tingled. She turned her head just in time to see Naruto come flying into her.

In retrospect she should have dodged him; she didn't really have any good excuse to let her preoccupation get away from her like that. They landed in a heap and lay there for a moment, groaning. Naruto rolled off her, wincing. "Sakura? Sakura-chan? You – "

"I'm fine," she grumbled, and glanced around to see where Tobi had gone. He was standing stock still, head turned to watch something. She followed his line of vision.

Gaara was on the ground, Gaara was kneeling on the ground and clutching his head, each bone in his hand jutting out sharply underneath his skin. Deidara wasn't laughing anymore, but he was smirking, and he still had that same smug asshole tone of voice she remembered. "Ready, yeah? I'm getting tired of this shit. Leader's pissed enough already."

She forgot every rule, every ounce of shinobi training she had ever been given. She spotted a well-sized pebble lying beside Naruto's clenched hand, picked it up, and hurled it at him with every inch of strength she could muster.

It struck his head, the part that was hidden by gently flowing bangs where his eye was, and she heard something shatter.

He didn't yelp, or flinch, just reached up and touched the spot where her projectile had met its mark. He brought his hand away holding something – his scope. Oh. She'd kind of hoped to take one of his eyes out.

He turned his head toward her slowly, and for the first time he looked truly livid. He wasn't smiling anymore. She took an automatic step backwards.

But she'd managed to get his attention off Gaara, and that was really all she'd wanted.

Naruto crouched in front of her and snarled, a guttural sound that tore from his chest and made her suppress a shiver. "Don't even think about it, bastard."

"Oh, we're playing house now, yeah?" Deidara sneered, eyes widening dangerously. "I'll be the robber who kills the whole family, then."

She stepped out from behind Naruto and narrowed her eyes. "Fuck off. If you touch either one of them I swear – "

"Oh, shut up," he cut her off disgustedly. "Don't act like every other self-righteous prick who's so above us because they think they're doing the right fucking thing, yeah. It pisses me off."

She resisted the urge to yell something back at him that would only further solidify his point – they _were_ doing the right thing, stupid dick – but Gaara let out an agonized noise and she really needed to deal with that. Right now.

But she was pretty sure she was going to get bombed to kingdom come the second she moved a muscle, a theory that proved correct when she seamlessly feinted to the right and abruptly had to dive out of the way as several miniature grenades bombarded the spot she'd just occupied. She rolled and used the momentum to get back on her feet, taking note of the miscellaneous shrapnel now embedded in her arm, and set off for Gaara at a dead sprint at the same time she heard Naruto yell, "Keep your eyes on _me_, jackass!"

Explosions dogged her footsteps, along with the understanding that if she slowed for a _second_ she was fucked, and by the time she reached Gaara she could feel her legs bleeding. She scooped the writhing man up without missing a beat, channeling chakra evenly through her arms, and set off for the trees, yelling Naruto's name as she did so.

When she didn't hear him following her and stopped having to dodge bombs she glanced over her shoulder, and stumbled.

He was going in the opposite direction, and Deidara was following. Tobi was standing uncertainly like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing. Gaara chose that decisive moment to drop all pretenses and scream torturedly, turning his head and muffling it against her shirt. She jerked to feel his mouth so close to her breast and almost dropped him, stumbled again, then pivoted around on one foot and ran after her teammate.

She knew Tobi was going to try and stop her, and she was anxious about that, especially with both her hands occupied. Still, she had always been a little too ballsy for her own good, so he looked like he wasn't entirely sure what to make of her when she charged him head on, even more so when she cracked off two shadow clones (along with two more shadow-clone, red-headed henges, which was really complicated shit if she did say so herself). He seemed a little startled when all she did was simply jump into the air, push off his shoulder, and keep going, letting the clones drop, but she wasn't going to stick around to see his reaction.

Frankly it disturbed her that it was so easy to get past him. Everything about him was too easy, and, if she squinted hard enough, she could almost think it was like he didn't _care_ what happened.

But she didn't really have time to wonder about him, because she was a little preoccupied with getting _away_ from him, plus she and her parcel, who was now thrashing around quite inconveniently, had hit the tree line. Her eyes darted around, searching for scraps of orange or yellow. She wanted to sedate Gaara, but didn't dare do something that would leave him so helpless and vulnerable. She also couldn't transfer him onto her back because she really doubted he could even hang on in the state he was in. So she tightened her grip on him and ploughed on.

She spotted him panting, back pressed against a tree while he squinted up at the sky. She realized that they should have gone into the forest from the start. Deidara was at a major disadvantage here.

She briefly cradled Gaara in one arm and waved rapidly. He swung his head around to stare at her, and she jerked her head at a ditch partially covered with rotting branches and pine straw. They scurried underneath the makeshift canopy, careful not to make a sound.

"What's wrong with Gaara?" he asked mutedly, staring as she settled him onto the ground and kept her hand pressed firmly over his mouth. He was covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, eyes rolling uncontrollably underneath a violently furrowed brow. He reached up and started scratching blindly at her wrist. She winced and gently pulled his hands away with her free one, then left it for him to clutch. She was suddenly overcome with déjà vu.

She scowled at the immediate surge of irritation and blew a centipede off her arm.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I think Shukaku's doing something, he looks a lot like he did during the chuunin exams."

"…no," Naruto said after staring at him for a long moment. "No, he's not losing control."

"What, Shukaku's just fucking around with his insides for fun?" she asked voice strained. It was _disturbing_, to see him like this, and she couldn't quite manage to keep her eyes on him for too long. "And how d'you – "

"I just – I don't know. Sakura-chan, listen," he said, suddenly serious. "I'm gonna distract Deidara, I think that other guy'll probably go after you. But you're going to take Gaara and outrun him, okay?"

She stared at him. She stared at him for a long, long time.

"_No,_" she hissed. "No we are _not_ doing the fucking splitting up thing."

"Sakura-chan – "

"_No._"

For what could only be the second or third time in her life, his eyes hardened at her. "Yes."

"Fine," she said briskly. "You're faster than I am anyway. How about YOU take Gaara, and I'll distract – "

"They want me more," he insisted. "They'll both come after me. We can't afford to lose Gaara to them."

"I can't afford to lose _you_ to them," she growled.

His expression suddenly softened, and he grinned a tiny bit. "I always did like you better than that bastard."

"Yeah, well, I would _hope_ so – "

He lurched forward suddenly, leaning over Gaara and planting both hands on either side of the ditch's dirt walls, and kissed her. She was so stunned her mind blanked out. He leaned back before she could finish putting her brain back together. She stared at him in wonder, mystified.

He looked more serious than she had ever seen him, eyes hooded and lips somber and – well – wet. Then he grinned, so hard it looked like his face might crack. You didn't even have to know him like she did to see that it was fake.

"Run fast."

"Nar – "

He leapt out from their hiding spot, sending pine straw flying everywhere, and took off, screaming at the top of his lungs. "_Oi!_ Bastard! Come out so I can punch you!"

She sat frozen, staring after him with eyes as wide as they would go and still feeling the pressure of his lips against hers.

She felt more torn than she ever had in her entire life. More than when she'd chosen between Sasuke and Ino. More than when she'd despised the very notion of leaving her village, her beloved village, but had been unable to reject the idea because she loved someone else more.

Naruto was getting farther and farther away from her – and some sick, selfishly weak part of her hoped that he would be far enough away by the time the first explosion came that she wouldn't be able to hear it.

She didn't know what to do. What could she do?

Gaara moaned, eyes scrunching up pitifully, and that made the decision for her.

She gathered him up in her arms again, and for some godforsaken reason found herself crooning to him in a voice that shook a lot more than she would have liked. "It's okay. I'll keep you safe, I promise. We'll be okay." She definitely wouldn't have been talking to him like this if he was fully aware and conscious. It felt slightly mortifying as it was.

She burst into the noon sunlight at a full run, being careful to neutralize her chakra so it would be undetectable. She could hear Naruto crashing through the underbrush behind her, and it took every ounce of willpower she had to go in the opposite direction.

She couldn't hear Tobi, or sense him, but when you were dealing with ninja that didn't mean much. She kept her eyes and ears pricked.

She didn't exactly feel safe taking to the branches as long as Deidara was involved, so she stuck to the ground. She weaved around, leaving false trails and backtracking and retracking, and at some point she came upon a muddy river, which she leapt onto, circulating chakra evenly throughout the heels and soles of her feet. She followed it until it ended out in a massive waterfall, then doubled back to find a new route, jumping at the slightest sound or movement.

She wasn't exactly sure when she started crying, only that she was angry at herself for it and she didn't have any free hands to wipe the moisture away.

She really had no idea where she was going, and she was too terrified of them catching up with her to stop and consult her compass and map. (Naruto didn't have a map. Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.)

After two or so hours her arms started aching, and after an hour more her legs followed suit. It was only thirty minutes later that they both started trembling. She could feel the very last reserves of her chakra, deeper than she'd ever gone before, draining away.

The last thing she wanted was to be left helpless and vulnerable and passed out, so when nightfall came a few minutes later she was forced to stop. And – oh, God, oh God was she lucky or what – there was a cave nearby. She heaved Gaara onto her shoulders like he was a dead buck with a burdened grunt and headed over to it.

After she'd ascertained that there were no other occupants, animal or otherwise, she headed inside and lowered Gaara to the ground as far away from the cave-mouth as possible, using up the very last shreds of her strength to do it gently and not just dump him on the granite like a sack of potatoes. He lost no time in opening his mouth and letting out a blood-curdling shriek that had her scrambling over to him and cramming her hand over his lips again. He didn't let up, arching off the ground and flecking her palm with saliva. She was pretty sure he tried to bite her at one point.

She was trying not to panic. She really was. She was trying _really fucking hard_. But yet here she was, utterly alone and charged with the responsibility of an incapacitated teammate who she had no idea how to help. Three years of training, and she still got stuck in situations like this.

Fuck.

And Naruto, she had no idea where Naruto was, or if he was okay, or if he was even alive because the way he had kissed her certainly said something about how likely he thought nonowaitshecouldn'tdothat. Back to Gaara.

It tore at her insides to look at him, writhing and moaning and so obviously in pain, and not know what to do to help him. It would be safe to sedate him now, probably – he was pretty useless as it was, anyway. But then she thought about Shukaku, and immediately knew that option was out the window. He may not be losing control, or whatever, but something was certainly going on, and she wasn't going to risk it.

She could, she decided, try pumping a little chakra into his seal when she had some to spare, which she really didn't right now. It was actually pretty likely she might seriously injure herself if she tried. But Naruto had told her that she could, if things ever got…really iffy, and so that was definitely an option. As for what she could do right now…she was useless to him. Her arm still had crap in it, and her leg was still bleeding a little. She would take care of that when she had some chakra, too. She probably wouldn't even be able to protect them, if they were found, in the state she was in.

So she did what she usually did when she was in rock-bottom situations, and pulled Gaara into her lap and smoothed her hand across his forehead. The chill of night was starting to set in, and she didn't dare to start a fire. She pulled him a little closer.

"So what do you think?" she muttered in his general direction, absently running her hands through his hair as he thrashed about. It seemed to relax him, marginally, at least. "S-class criminals after us, Naruto's off who knows where, no help from anybody, and not a nearby village for days. We seem pretty fucked to me."

He responded by doing his damn best to claw her arm's skin off. She sighed wearily, rolling her eyes. He was going to owe her whenever he got out of this…snit. So much.

She grabbed both his wrists in one of hers and leaned down until her forehead was almost touching his. "Can you hear me? At all?"

He stilled, for almost a second, and it had her fluttering with excitement. Well, at least he wasn't entirely gone. He could still hear her.

"Gaara, I know it hurts, I mean, I don't know what it is, but." She paused, frowning at the wall. Boy, she would never make it as a psychiatrist. "Um. But I don't have any chakra to help you, or even numb you. If I did I would. I am as soon as I get some more. So just…hang in there, okay? I'm right here."

He opened his eyes and locked her in a squinty-eyed stare, then closed them again, moaning. She stroked his temple softly.

She knew she wouldn't be sleeping at all this night, not if she had any plans on keeping them alive. She settled with her back against the cave wall and the ever-squirming Gaara in her lap and stared dully ahead.

"We'll all be okay," she whispered helplessly to the still night air, and brokenly wished it would agree with her.

* * *

_'He lost no time in opening his mouth and letting out a blood-curdling shriek that had her scrambling over to him and cramming her mouth over his lips again.'_

...that was an actual typo. I shit you not.

I love writing angry!Sakura so, so much. Almost as much as I love writing helpless!Gaara and heroic!Naruto. I had some qualms about making Naruto pull the whole I'lldistractthemwhileyourun thing, because he seems like more of a 'We're sticking together no matter what' kind of guy, but I think in a really hopeless situation he might do it, if it was to protect Sakura and Gaara. Mostly Sakura.


	9. Drama and its Downsides

It hurt.

It hurt a lot.

It _burned_, like someone was grabbing slimy fistfuls of his insides, squishing them between their digits so they wouldn't lose their grip and _twisting_, sending shockwaves of agony pulsing out, making his entire body convulse, arch, anything to get _away_. But there was no getting away, there was no relief and if there ever were anything that really might have sent him over the edge of his sanity, this was it. His head cracked open and spilled his neon blood all over the floor and he gasped from the shock of it all, choking on it. He couldn't breathe; it hurt too much for him to breathe and _oh fuck oh fuck_ just let him die already, please just let him die –

He could just barely feel someone touching his forehead, freezing cold cold cold_, agh_, God, he couldn't feel. Or he could, yes, too much, his nerve endings were frying, sending sparks out to singe his blood, clogging his arteries and forcing his flow to burst out and leak into his mouth. Where else did it have to go? _Too much_. He wanted to cringe away, protect himself, inflict a quarter of what he was feeling onto whoever was fucking _touching _him. Who was _touching_ him?

Then it occurred to him that he was so hot, so hot burning, and it didn't feel good, more like stunningly different, but the cold was better. Felt better, and he latched onto it, curled his very being around it and refused to let go. Something was in his hair, too – what – someone was running their hands through his hair. Nice.

"…n…me?"

It was the first sound that had really reached him besides his own animal-noises in over an hour, and he froze from the shock of it. For just a second.

"…um…know……I'm here."

He cracked an eye open. What?

He could barely see, but not, because she was there, staring down at him seriously like he had just announced his decision to – he'd already done that. Nevermind

Heat was building up behind his spinal chord and he didn't think he could resist it long enough to respond to her, so he let out a muffled groan and let his eyes roll back in his head as it overflowed, washing through him and burning his core out with an entirely fresh kind of pain that was worse than the last one. He had to be dead. It wasn't physically possible for this to happen to him and not be dead.

He heard her sigh, through his red-stained eyelids and involuntary spasms, and then, "We'll…be okay."

She said a lot of things after that, half of which he didn't catch, and the half he did was mostly mindless chatter. He found himself dazedly wondering at one point why Naruto wasn't talking.

He didn't know how long he lay there – when had he gotten on the ground? The last he remembered he was being shaken around like a piece of cargo – or if it was hours or days or seconds going by, or if he was even alive anymore, because eventually Sakura stopped talking.

But then it edged back. Marginally. He'd been able to entertain semi-coherent thoughts for a while now, but now he was actually aware of the fact. Enough so to realize he was hungry. How long was this going to last?

Agonizingly slow, it receded. He became slowly aware of his body for the first time in hours, how he felt like death warmed over, weak and sick and sticky. It was at the point that he felt a foreign, but, vaguely familiar (tingly, he recalled) chakra being streamed into him that it seriously started to become bearable. He let out a shuddering breath of helpless relief and tried opening his eyes again.

His vision was fuzzy, and he had an idea that if there was any bright light around he would be cringing. He blinked a couple of times, and wasn't the least bit surprised when she swam into view, in the same place she'd been last time.

She looked back at him. "You know Gaara, you pick really inopportune moments to pull this shit."

She looked a little worse for wear. Pale and drawn, with waxy dark circles under eyes that made them seem even greener, sunken back into her head and peering out at the world from a safe distance. He had to wonder how she had any chakra at all.

The burn had mellowed out to a slight stinging throb, and he glanced down at where her hand rested under his shirt, splayed un-shyly over his stomach. He shivered a little, but didn't quite have the energy to really revel in it. He tried talking, and it came out as a painful little rasp that scratched his already parched throat. He swallowed dryly a few times.

"Have you…" he still sounded awful. "Slept at all?"

She looked away from her thin, pathetic chakra pump to raise an eyebrow at him, face utterly serious and devoid of her usual animation. "Have you?"

The _touché_ was heard well enough without anyone having to say it. He coughed a couple of times, cringing, and then suddenly comprehended that he was very horizontal. And comfy. And he blinked.

In her lap. He was _in her lap_. His head was resting lifelessly on her thigh, one arm curled around her ankle. Her stomach was remarkably close to his face, shirt riding up somewhat and offering a sliver of exposed skin, criss-crossed with faint scars. He stared at the bared skin, transfixed.

It was a strange feeling, to know you should be reacting but feeling too washed out to do so. Off-balancing. Kind of nice, in how floaty it was. This was the most affection he'd gotten out of anybody in years. Well, his siblings took the time to pat his shoulder or hug him every now and again these days, but that was different. In so many ways.

But still.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

He reached out to swipe at her, missed, and got her hand the second time. "Stop giving me all your chakra."

"Well see Gaara, I was kind of under the impression you needed my chakra, since you wouldn't shut up," she groused, but as he watched her fingers lost their glow and he felt her chakra taper off. It almost made him smile. He would rather have her irritated with him than…void. He was suddenly overcome with the instinct to bring her hand closer to his face and tenderly lick each digit to show her his gratitude, since he'd never be able to get it out verbally. And then maybe he could go up along her wrist, and spend some time at the little indent that was her inner elbow, because that looked like it needed attending to…

He blinked, only mildly surprised, and took a moment to curiously poke at these urges before shutting them down with a snap. Clearly, he was more off-kilter than usual.

He released her hand, because he'd been holding it too long and he could see her getting uncomfortable and shakily rose into a sitting position. He suddenly felt a lot colder, without so much of her pressing against him. He wondered if they had any water but didn't want to ask. Instead he glanced around, taking in the damp rock and dusty sunlight. Cave. He'd have to ask her how she'd managed to find them one.

"Where's Naruto?"

Something in her expression shuttered, like a light going off. His stomach twisted in an entirely different kind of way.

"He ran off so Deidara wouldn't come after us. I think Tobi followed him too."

"What?"

"He's off playing the damn hero!" she snapped, sounding truly angry about it. There was something strangely off about her though – too tense, defensive. Did she feel guilty?

"Is he okay?"

"I don't know!" she said fretfully. "We don't have any special scrolls or radios or any other way to communicate, he wouldn't go back to Wave and put them all in danger, and Konoha is four days away. _At least_. We didn't even decide on a place to regroup, he just jumped up and left!"

Well, there was some of the panic he'd been wondering about. She'd even stumbled over the last part, voice cracking.

Again with the urge to lick her. Goddammit that was distracting.

To be completely honest, he wasn't particularly worried. Naruto had a knack for getting out of hopeless situations. Or, to be more accurate, tracking them down and beating them shitless.

"How did we get here?" he asked, because watching her get so worked up and worried and obviously upset was making him uncomfortable. He had the vague inkling that he should do something about it, but he didn't know jack shit about how. So he looked around some more, and discerned from the distinctively clear quality of the sunlight that it was early morning. It made her look even more frail and washed out.

"I carried you."

He suddenly felt a lot more guilty. Had he been useless? He couldn't remember much, just…he collapsed at some point, he knew. Then there was just the pain, and the praying that it would just be over even though he didn't believe in any gods.

"My gourd…?"

She looked away apologetically, biting her lip. "I had to ditch it. It weighed too much."

It made his stomach sink to hear it, sickly, but he would live. Just…

He'd had that gourd and the sand that was in it for as long as he could remember. It was much better sand than what he could pick up out of the dirt. It was stronger, and – closer to him, if you could call it that. Easier to control.

Still, it wasn't worth their lives. And maybe carrying around something soaked in dozens of innocents' blood wasn't really the best way to get over his past.

"We can…try to go back for it, if you want," she said timidly. His eyes snapped up to stare at her. Was she…sorry? Sorry that she couldn't carry someone thirty pounds heavier than she was plus his forty pound gourd while running for her life? Something inside him twisted.

"Thank you."

It was simple, and nowhere near what he needed to say to her, but he thought she got it. Her eyes widened, surprised. Then her lips curved a little shyly and she just barely ducked her head. The effect on her face was unusual, but…nice. "It's nothing."

She shifted, stretching out her legs and reaching out to touch her toes, making a long, drawn out sound of general pleasure. The skin on the calve closest to him flexed, and some of the caked-on dirt flaked off, smell wafting over to him and –

Wait.

"You haven't healed your legs."

She twisted her neck to look at him under her arm. "Um. No chakra, remember?" She paused. "And before you start getting on my ass about giving you any, it takes a lot more chakra to heal something than it does to give your seal a little edge. So no bitching."

He'd stopped caring about his two companions' unending creative bitch manipulations a while ago, so he didn't react. Instead he let his eyes rove over the rest of her, silently taking stock of all her other injuries. Her other leg was also looking a little torn up, and her left arm was peppered all up its length with little scabs. She also had a long, uneven gash under her eye, puckered and crusted with dried blood. It bothered him deeply, that he was so virtually unblemished in comparison.

She shifted, just a little, flashing the underside of her arm at him, which was also covered in miscellaneous little battle wounds. A majority of which –

His heart was already sinking. "Who did that?"

She straightened up and glanced at where his eyes were fixed, bringing it closer to her face for inspection. The jagged, violent scratches looked worse when they were fully exposed. "Oh. Um. You know, I was really kind of busy running and not taking inventory of my scrapes as they came, so. I dunno."

She was a horrible liar. He supposed that was to be expected when your fighting style was subtle as a blunt axe on its period.

He couldn't quite manage to look at her now, so he angled himself away and stared at the wall. It was very gray. He couldn't even go one night without threatening or mauling her. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Furthermore…what had he been thinking, getting them into this? It had seemed a good idea at the time. But now Shukaku just kept getting worse and he had no idea what the hell had happened yesterday, and Naruto was gone, and everything was just fuckered up. This was _his_ problem. It had never been anyone else's problem, so why had he thought differently this time? He was going to drag them down with him.

Self-revulsion roiled in his stomach, evolving into full-blown nausea and clashing nicely with his hunger. He lowered his head to his knees, closing his eyes.

Monster. Freak. Murderer. Well, there was something to be said for all of it.

Why had he ever thought differently?

* * *

Sakura stared at his hunched back, a little boggled by his peculiar behavior. Was he that bothered by it? He had been a pitiful, whimpering little ball at the time; her scratches seemed a little trivial in comparison. They were superficial at worst, she could heal them in a heartbeat as soon as she recovered a little bit

But still. She watched his tense, rigid shoulders flex, and watched him put his head down, all the while studiously ignoring her.

She really wasn't used to dealing with things like this. Naruto usually hid it so well when he was sad that she didn't even notice, and when she did it was relatively easy to boost him up again. Gaara was…different. Complicated. Too many layers to count, and she didn't know where to start.

So she settled for what was given. "Gaara?"

He didn't reply, but she had long since figured out that when he didn't say anything he really wasn't ignoring you, and was actually just assuming you understood he was listening. One day she'd have to explain to him that not everyone was fluent in body language.

"Are you…okay?"

God. Damn it. Of _course_ he wasn't going to open up to that. To him that was right on par with _Are you weak? Are you vulnerable? Are you retarded?_ Never mind posture, Gaara was a whole different language. Gaara-ese. Gaartic.

He was quiet for the briefest of seconds. "Fine."

She stared mutely at his back, and then, for whatever reason because she really had no idea, felt her throat close up.

Her breath must have hitched or something, because he turned to look at her quizzically over his shoulder. She ignored him, stumbling to her feet and heading blindly for the exit.

She was almost there before she remembered that she couldn't leave Gaara and had to stomp around in circles a few times to vent her feelings about this.

She wasn't entirely sure what had set her off, because he certainly hadn't said anything to piss her off, just – they were stuck together, just her and him. No Naruto. They were in it alone for the time being, and he wasn't doing much to reassure her that they would be okay like that. If he was going to spend his time shutting her out and leaving her to her own devices…

She was so scared.

And she hated to admit it, because dammit, she was a big girl. But she just wanted – _something_, to let her know that this was all a normal part of her shinobi career and it would all be okay and when she got home she'd have some amazing mission stories to tell Ino and Genma and Anko.

Expecting that out of Gaara was like expecting a mushroom to tell you you were pretty. It just wasn't going to happen, and she was selfish and stupid for wanting it because Gaara was so fucked up he had every right for comforting her to be the _last_ thing on his mind, but she wanted it anyway and she couldn't help herself.

Gaara had shuffled silently over to her while she was doing this, and for a while she didn't even notice him. When she did she stopped, narrowing her eyes at him over her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be walking around," she grumbled.

He just stared at her, clearly perplexed. "What is _wrong _with you?"

She felt something inside her snap. She didn't know what, or why, because this really wasn't a big deal and she knew she was overreacting, all he'd done was choose not to share his feelings with her, but she didn't care. All she knew was that she felt it, as clear as day, like a rubber band breaking, or a twig under someone's foot.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked disbelievingly. And then, a little louder, because she was just feeling a little stressed. "_What's wrong with me?_ We're hiding in a fucking cave, Gaara. We've got two of the most dangerous people in the world after us, I'm out of chakra, you keep having – seizure – things, I don't know what's wrong with you, I doubt you do either but how would I know, you won't tell me, Naruto's off who the fuck knows where, you're planning on ditching Suna, and – and – just, fuck, all right? I'm sorry I'm freaking out, I just – "

If he was confused before he was definitely stricken now, eyes wide and leaning slightly away from her as if she was a particularly unpredictable animal.

And then she realized, with a sickening jolt of humiliation, that she was crying, and that was probably what he was freaked out about. What the _fuck_. How did these things _happen_ to her?

She turned her back to him, scrubbing viciously at her face. Stupid goddamn eyes couldn't figure out when shit like this was appropriate. Gaara probably thought she was a complete pussy. He probably thought she hadn't progressed at all. He probably – he probably was regretting ever having taken her.

But it felt so, so good, letting out some of her stress and anxiety and frustration in a way that wasn't violence or screaming like a harpy. She couldn't seem to stop. And the longer she was unable to stop the more it started to sound less like silent crying and more like full-blown sobbing. And Gaara was still watching her. She wrapped her arms around her shaking shoulders, head bowing. _Just leave. Just leave. Please just leave and give me five minutes or something. _Or stop looking at her. Jesus, he could at least pretend to not notice.

He heard him take a step, towards her, or the exit, and she couldn't muster up the self-control to check which one. Another one, and another. He was probably going to walk right out the damn door. Cave. Whatever.

She was a little curious when he stopped directly behind her, and for almost a second she was scared. (She quashed down that reflex. Fast.)

Then he stiffly threaded his arms around her from behind, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

Her crying stuttered and halted out of shock, spiked eyelashes popping open. Whoa. Whoa whoa. Gaara was touching her. Gaara never touched anyone.

He was apparently well aware of this fact, because he was tense as a board and obviously uncomfortable, awkwardly clasping one arm loosely across her shoulders, the only uninjured part of her he was allowed to clasp, the other wrapping around her waist. He – hovered, almost, heat radiating off his chest in waves but not touching her.

Tentative. Uncertain. He could redirect her flashflood of emotions in one simple gesture, and it was vaguely disturbing to her. She half-wanted to just keep crying, because calming down meant she'd have to face all the responsibility again, and come to terms with the fact that yes, they were being hunted like animals. But she knew how hard it was for him to do this, knew that for him this was the ultimate act of apology. He wouldn't know what to say anyway. He was making it impossible for her to stay upset at him.

Jerk.

So, after a few seconds of flighty deliberation, she decided to make it a little easier on him, and leaned back into his solid weight, gently clasping his arm in both her hands.

He sucked in a startled breath. She could feel his heartbeat thudding strongly against her back, sky-rocketing. She half-smiled without realizing it.

"…thanks."

He didn't say anything to that, and the idea probably made him uncomfortable anyway. He did tighten his grip on her though, being gentle enough to not press against any of the bruises he knew were there without asking. His head lowered a little, and she could have sworn she heard him inhale deeply.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been hugged. Naruto treated her to a lot of one-armed squeezes now and then, but he never embraced her. Tsunade didn't condone such things; she was a staunch believer that she was showing Sakura she loved her by beating her within an inch of her life so she'd be more prepared for the real thing. Kakashi would have been uncomfortable with the very idea.

But Gaara. Gaara really could be a squishy asshole when he felt like it.

And then it hit her, really hit her, that Gaara was practically cradling her, and this was the most intimate way anyone had ever touched her, and Gaara was _smelling her hair_. Her sense of security flickered and died.

He sensed it, and his arms dropped, slowly. They stood like that for one strange, teetering moment. Then Sakura took a deep breath and turned around, smiling.

"So," she said, lightly patting his chest. "Any plans?"

He followed her hand's movement with his eyes, then brought them back up to her face, which, she was aware, was still streaked with moisture. She lifted her chin the tiniest bit.

"We need to get back to Konoha," he said, he said, head tilting. She had forgotten how uncomfortable it made her to be under his direct scrutiny. He was so…intense about it.

"I figured that much. You think we should move now or wait 'till we have more juice? I don't want a repeat of yesterday."

"Now," he replied certainly. "We need to put as much distance between us and them before we do anything else."

"Okay. We can probably find some food along the way. There's probably some berries or something."

"…your pack's back at the camp?"

"…yeah. It's back at the camp. I've got my hip-pouch, though," she said, patting it as she would a favorite cat. "And that has my canteen. We should have enough for until we go by a river."

She trailed off, because he was staring at said pouch like he was trying to burn holes in it with his mind alone.

"…or we could have some now. Y'know, because we're dehydrated."

He smiled at her, just barely, and she had to wonder why that made everything suddenly better.

* * *

By the fifth time Sakura stumbled over a tree root (or a rock, or a dent in the ground, she'd stopped looking a while ago) and just barely escaped hitting the ground face-first, she was feeling more pessimistic. Her chakra was trickling back into her, creeping through her pathways, but at the rate of a concussed snail. Gaara, meanwhile, was moving like he had never fallen screaming to the floor in the first place. She knew he was on edge, twitchy and tense and constantly sweeping his gaze over everything it could reach, and wondered if he felt vulnerable without his gourd.

She was immeasurably grateful he was keeping the pace as slow as possible for her. He would even stop every time she fell behind and wait patiently for her to catch up. Like a gentleman. Who was nervous as a ferret.

She didn't ask how far they were going, because she knew. As far as they could, until one of them had to stop. That was doubtless going to be her, because she just didn't go well with chakra exhaustion.

At one point she made him stop at a small patch of mushrooms that she knew not to be poisonous, and that took the edge off their hunger. She knew Gaara had been starving too. Just like she knew he wouldn't have said anything about it.

Her thoughts drifted off to Naruto, in a hazy, unfocused kind of way. What was he doing right now? Hunting squirrels?

Being hunted?

"Hey, Gaara?" she said tiredly. "Talk to me. I'm afraid I'm going to fall asleep."

He glanced at her. "About what?"

"I don't know…anything. How are Kankuro and Temari? Is she engaged to Shikamaru yet? How's Suna doing? Got any big renovation projects going on?"

He turned his head fully towards her. "Since when have Shikamaru and Temari been engaged?"

She was a little surprised that he'd chosen to pursue that topic, out of all the ones she'd offered. "They're really not."

"Then why would you ask that?"

"You mean you really haven't noticed?" She blinked at him. "Gaara, they're like – they're like, this close," she said, holding up her middle and index finger for him to see.

"…she could do worse," he said finally, voice grudging. It made her lips quirk up even further. Gaara _cared_. "I'd rather it be him than that…dog guy."

"Kakashi?" she asked, surprised, before it clicked. "Oh. You know, Kiba's actually a pretty good guy. I mean, he's kind of an ass, granted, but…"

"Temari would castrate him."

"Probably," she agreed. "He's going with Hinata anyway. He doesn't need to worry about his genitals around her."

"Perk."

"Yeah. Big one."

"…black hair?"

"Really shy." Gifted in the chest in a way Sakura never would be. "Yeah, that's her."

"Hm."

"Hmm? No opinion?"

"I don't know them."

The conversation was effectively ended, and for a while she just staggered after him in silence. Up until the point black started creeping into the edges of her vision and she felt the need to distract herself again. "Gaara?"

"Uh?" he grunted at her.

"Tsunade said you chose me and Naruto specifically for this mission."

If she paid close attention, she could see that he had gotten really, really still.

"I can see Naruto," she went on blithely. "But uh…why me?"

He stopped, for the first time in over an hour, and looked at her over his shoulder. She stuttered to a halt as well, curiosity peaked. There was actually a reason? An important reason?

"You really want to know?"

She stared at him. "Would I have asked otherwise?"

He turned to face her, face giving nothing away. She waited expectantly, feeling vaguely excited. Did he do it for her medical abilities? Her strength? Her shining reputation as a sannin's apprentice? She could feel her ego swelling.

"I brought you," he said slowly. "Because I know you were the person Naruto would try the hardest to keep me from killing."

So simple. So final. Her ego crashed back down to earth.

He was watching her guardedly, abruptly withdrawn. She had no idea how he did it. Acted virtually casual with her one second and shut her out the next. It was disorienting.

Her mouth didn't seem to be working. All she could seem to do was stare at him with her lips parted, trying to figure out if she should be humbled or terrified. She was a _restrictive measure_. A _floatie_. And the way he said it – like it didn't matter one way or the other if he really did kill her. So long as Naruto could keep him from spreading the carnage.

His eyes were utterly blank as he surveyed her reaction. She still couldn't figure out how to talk.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked dispassionately.

_Yes. She was_, her mind insisted. Why was he doing this? He had been hugging her just a little while ago. He changed too quickly, from friend to predator in an instant. Her prey instincts were screaming.

But, still, was she _afraid _of him? What kind of a question was that? He had brought her along knowing well and good that he might kill her. Was she _pissed_ at him would be a more felicitous inquiry. Was she _angry_ that he thought she was _disposable_. Was she _offended_. Was she _really wishing_ she had some chakra right now.

"No," she told him, voice curiously blank. "I'm upset that you're such a jackass.

And then she walked calmly past him and kept going.

"Sakura."

She gave him a steely glare over her shoulder. He was unfazed, walking towards her like he wasn't currently imperiling himself by being near her.

"Don't hug me," she warned. "That doesn't work every time you do something assholic."

"I'm not – " he made a frustrated sound and fell silent, glaring away at a tree. She followed suit, refusing to look at him.

And they trudged on in silence.

* * *

DRAMATIZE.

Goddammit. I'm supposed to be fixing this, not adding onto it. Fhjsdal;fdsa87i3ukjns stupid distracting plot.

Also, I was a retard and forgot about Gaara's gourd. It will be fixed soon.

Ehhhh not much happened. I'm really trying to focus on defining their relationship more though before I bring out the heavy lama drama.


	10. Things Not Said

Watching Sakura in general was somewhat soothing, provided she was in one of her exceedingly rare not-particularly-angry or not-particularly-worried moods.

Watching her sleep was downright therapeutic.

And you could say that hovering by her side with your eyes unblinkingly fixated on her expanding and deflating chest and wondering just what you'd do if she up and stopped breathing was a little _creepy_, but Gaara didn't say those things and he really didn't give a shit.

He stretched his legs out in front of him, because they were getting a little stiff from his unwavering tenseness. Twigs, animals, the wind; it was all driving him fucking crazy. He was on edge, nervous and uncomfortable and ears and eyes strained to their breaking point for any sign of them being pursued. And his ever-present twitchiness was providing him with a nice little reminder of his looming insanity; you didn't accidentally slam your knuckle so hard into your nose it bled a little and not wonder about these things. He was strung tighter than he ever cared to remember and it was grating at him, slowly but surely, and at some point he knew he was going to snap. (He was already breathing funny.) And that was where staring at Sakura like a fucking stalker came in.

She would probably be a little…upset, if she woke up and found him like this. Because they'd gotten past the point where she pretended not to notice and they'd gotten past the point where it made her uncomfortable, and as far as she was concerned they were hurtling straight toward _stop looking at me, you red-headed cunt. _

Gaara didn't know if he was supposed to pretend the fact that she hadn't said a word to him all of yesterday and hadn't even graced him with an angry look as she settled down on her side to sleep because she couldn't keep going didn't bother him or what, but he didn't know what to do about it. Her being mad at him, that was.

Well, scratch that. He was utterly and completely grounded in her least-favorite-peoples list.

Gaara liked to think he was a simple creature. (He wasn't. But he liked to think it.) As far as he was concerned, he trusted his instincts to guide him safely through most decisions he might have to make. (Except when his instincts were telling him to slaughter someone and/or run his tongue up their bodily appendages. Then he had to throw some critical thinking into the mix.) When his body told him something he listened to it. (Like when his body crippled him with a blinding flash-flood of agony. That was more or less telling him he _might_ want to be on the lookout for anything strange. Like Shukaku popping out of his eye socket.) He really wasn't that complicated. (Okay, so he wasn't fooling anyone.)

So, naturally, having Sakura and all her plentiful mood-swings thrown at him was a little startling.

And when you added in the fact that he didn't know what the hell to do about them he was just plain bothered by it.

If she didn't want to know why had she even asked?

_Because Naruto would stop him_. Well, it was true. It wasn't a big deal; it wasn't even personal.

And how the hell was he supposed to know she'd end up as more than just precious organ-bag five-six-oh? He wasn't psychic. Who else was he supposed to have chosen? He wasn't about to dump that shit on either of his siblings, and Naruto had been the only other person he really trusted. And where Naruto went, Sakura generally went along. He didn't like the feel of their squad-leader; he was too withdrawn and too hard to figure out and Gaara never would have been able to rest easy with him nearby.

Oh, the irony just made itself.

And the thing that really made Gaara uneasy at the idea of Kakashi accompanying them was the fact that he got the impression, both from just watching and from what Naruto had told him, that if either of Kakashi's subordinates was in danger he would snuff out the source, and without remorse. And while that was sounding like quite a reasonable option right now, Gaara hadn't been thinking anything along the lines when he first decided to attempt this excursion.

So that left him with Naruto, who he trusted and whose whereabouts were currently unknown, and Sakura, who had come along with the package and who was regarding him with all the hostility as though he'd killed her cat.

His people skills _sucked_.

Sakura snuffled and shifted in her sleep, and for one hazy moment he felt a stabbing wave of jealousy. Then she mumbled something incoherent and snuggled her nose a little into her arm and it faded, distracted as he was by the odd slackness of her lips.

Now that he thought about it, this was edging a little on obsession.

But like he'd said, Gaara was a simple creature and he didn't try to ponder it out when his body was telling him something.

* * *

This settled it, sleep was better than sex. Or what she'd heard about sex from Ino anyway. Sakura wasn't going to get into specifics.

Something was nibbling at the corner of her mind, some tiny little alarm that was urging her to move a little faster, get her guard up. But years of deeply ingrained stubbornness overcame her years of deeply ingrained training, letting her sigh and stretch and drift deliciously on the furry edge between rest and awakeness. Mmm, delicious.

But that odd little tingling sensation just refused to go away, and that was tugging at her instincts, and that was just annoying. She could vaguely recall that she was a ninja, and ninja were supposed to pay attention to these things.

And so it was with a deep reluctance that she began the agonizing task of heaving her eyes open, and came face to face with Gaara, who was crouching over her with the utmost focus.

She considered screaming, but that pesky experience was telling her that loud conspicuous noises were a bad idea given their situation. She also considered punching him, but too many seconds had gone by for her to pass it off as a reflex.

So she was left to give him a bleary glare that was probably so pathetic it made Pakkun look ferocious and roll her back to him, pushing herself up and stretching deeply, taking a sadistic kind of pleasure in her body's miscellaneous cracks and pops. She could feel, quite keenly, Gaara's eyes on her, and she studiously ignored him.

She felt…well, achingly sore, but in a weird way really quite delicious. She could feel her chakra, bright and humming and so easily harnessed, and that gave her a sense of security she'd been missing for the past day and a half. It reminded her of her earliest workouts with Tsunade, when she'd wake up with her muscles screaming death in a kind of beautiful way that made her smile the tiniest bit before she dragged her whimpering self to the bathroom for a hot soak in the tub.

"You were talking in your sleep."

Her stomach lurched with embarrassment, and her slight bubble of pleasure burst. She was glad her face wasn't in his line of view. Sleep-talking was something she rarely ever did, but when it happened she could never remember what she'd dreamed about and, since half her nights were spent with other people, it was always highly humiliating. She'd never forget the time Naruto and Sasuke practically caught her having a wet dream about Kakashi; they'd teased her for months. (Which was goddamn unfair, _everyone_ had wet dreams about Kakashi.)

"What did I talk bout?"

It slipped out before she could remember that she wasn't talking to him, but if Gaara realized this he gave no indication. And, well…maybe she could forgive him; surely a day of mentally castrating him was enough to get him off her shit list?

"Sasuke."

No, no, he was still on.

She didn't even grace him with an "Oh," she just stood up and started brushing herself off and didn't look at him. Well, she'd never done that before. She supposed it had only been a matter of time…

Gaara stayed seated on the ground, looking up at her with all the veiled curiosity she'd become accustomed to, as well as some other hard glinty emotion that she couldn't quite read. And him looking at her always did make her feel too vulnerable for her own liking. _Especially_ if she'd been murmuring Sasuke's name all night.

…it hadn't been a sexy dream, had it? She tried to figure out if she felt aroused.

"You miss him."

It wasn't a question but it was, in that weird indirect way Gaara had because he refused to straight out ask these things. If he thought she was going to answer him he must have been out of his damn mind. Sasuke was a subject that was painful to talk about with Naruto and Kakashi, and as far as she was concerned it wasn't anyone else's business.

"Why?"

She spun around to stare at him, because Sakura had always been an emotional person and that was just a little too much for her. Plus Gaara had this weird gleaming look in his eyes and she didn't feel comfortable turning her back to that.

"Why do you _think?"_ she demanded, already on the verge of being offended. Just that this was such a _tender_ subject and it made everything seem so _raw_ and _why was Gaara looking at her like that?_ Like he was – like she should know better, or like she was saying something that was axiomatically ridiculous.

Never one to spare people's feelings or anything silly like that, Gaara went straight for what he really should have known would set her off. "He's a traitor. You're wasting your time."

Her temper, already bubbling, flared up like an incensed animal and before she knew it she had taken the few steps forward that would put her right in his dispassionate face (and she had to bend over because he was still crouched on the ground but that was okay because _was he retarded or what_), fists clenching automatically. He looked up at her and for all intents and purposes appeared to be utterly unimpressed.

"Let's get something straight right now," she growled, and resisted the urge to poke a self-righteous finger into his chest because his sand would probably catch it and that would just be emasculating. "_You don't get to talk shit about my teammates_. Got it?"

And then something in Gaara's face twisted, something between it sucking in on itself and a coiled spring being let loose, and the effect almost had her taking a step back.

"He abandoned your village," he snapped venomously, eyes narrow and bright and just _off_. "He'd kill you on sight and you still chase after him like a love sick little slave – "

And that just hurt. "Fuck you," she said, half in disbelief because really, where was this coming from? "That has nothing to do with it."

"It has _everything_ to do with it," he snarled. This was going too fast, she couldn't follow – up until yesterday Gaara didn't _act_ like this. He didn't – he wasn't malicious just for the sake of it, and she was having a damn hard time pretending she didn't care. "You're too _pathetic_ to see how worthless he is."

Something deep inside her caught and she stared at him wordlessly, feeling numbness creep up her fingertips.

Her gut reaction was to punch him, but something told her that in this situation she would just make things worse. Her second reaction was to stalk away, but that was conceding defeat and something about his clear resentful gaze directed at _her_ was keeping her locked in place. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted –

"You don't know anything about him," she said lowly, in a last-ditch effort to not let this spiral out of control.

He laughed, then, barked out this tense mirthless sound that made his mouth curl freakishly and his nose wrinkle up, and her knees almost gave out then and there. "No, _you_ don't know anything about him. You don't know because you're still convinced you _love_ him – "

"For someone who hates him so much, you act a lot like him."

She didn't mean it, not really, because once you got past the surface they were _nothing_ alike. But her ears were ringing and she felt damn ready to kill him, and her only other option was to pay attention to the sudden tight burning of her throat and no one wanted that.

He broke off like she had struck him, and for a long, wordless moment they stared at each other, air charged and staticy and palpable and on the verge of splintering.

Then a kunai struck a tree quite close to her head, and they got distracted.

She reacted without thinking, switching her body out with a nearby branch and crouching down under a leafy bush, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the spot the projectile had come from. Which, undoubtedly, the attacker had now moved from. She was still a little shocked, head buzzing with familiar _too close I could have died so easy_ thoughts, but she was accustomed enough to that that she was able to push it down without much trouble. She flicked her gaze between the two spots forty-five degrees from the kunai's origin. She could just barely feel a slight hum of energy, so barely-there it would have been undetectable had she not been so sensitive to chakra. The only thing that spoke of Gaara's joining her was the slight rasp of sand to her left.

She crossed out the idea of it being Tobi or Deidara – from what she'd seen of Deidara he didn't bother with subtlety, and Tobi wouldn't have had a problem completely masking his chakra. Unless he was letting some leak out to throw her off, which was a very real possibility.

She was reaching, achingly slow, to pull a shuriken out of her leg strap when Gaara started panting, and she paused to glance at him cautiously.

He was staring in the same direction she was, lips slightly parted with his tongue just barely poking out. In a flash of perverted insight she was sharply reminded of a snake tasting the air. His eyes were overly bright, gleaming.

She started to reach out to touch his shoulder on instinct – yes, they were in the middle of a fight and yes, for some reason he was on jackass mode, but they were still comrades and they were in danger and she swore, if he collapsed on her again she would fucking kill him.

He twitched, this weird little jerk of his wrist, and that was all the warning she got to dive the hell out of the way before a flood of sand erupted from the ground and virtually exploded.

She rolled, automatically pressing her back flat to a tree in case two tons of granulated rock wasn't enough to distract their attacker. Her heart was pounding furiously, pulsing in her throat and making it hard to think straight. Gaara was acting weird, something was wrong with Gaara. Sand was crashing around behind her, so loud it made her head throb, sounding more like a wild animal than an inanimate object. She swallowed several times and then angled herself slightly to peek around the edge of the trunk.

The sand was flooding through the trees, flowing around some and tearing down others and engulfing everything, leaving no room for escape. Sakura caught a flash of white as the man threw stealth to the wind and attempted to flee – and then Gaara's sand washed over him and dragged him down. She watched his head – masked, hunter-nin – struggle to remain above the surface, arms flailing pathetically as he assumedly gasped for air. She could have sworn she heard Gaara chuckle, and a pocket of sickness swelled in her belly.

She crept out form behind her shield, wanting to approach him but feeling slightly too wary to do so. Then she caught sight of his face, and that convinced her that approaching Gaara right now would be downright suicide.

She teetered, for a second, caught unawares and unsure what to do. If she hesitated too long that guy was going to end up dead, and that just wouldn't do because she'd personally like to know why he was trying to kill them in the first place. On the other hand, Gaara had been shaky all morning and he _looked_ like he'd finally fulfilled his promise of being dangerous, fingers twisted as his teeth glinted exposed in his clear, unbridled delight. She felt her own breath speed up in response, panicfear seeping into her skin like an oily disease.

"Gaara."

He didn't hear her, or he ignored her, and she had to take a step forward and swallow to wet her bone-dry throat, because she couldn't see the hunter-nin anymore and this was just getting out of hand. "_Gaara_."

His eyes flicked at her this time, and she didn't know if it was her voice or the sight of her standing there white-faced and staying out of touching distance that got to him, but either way his grin slid off his face like something melting. His arm dropped limply and bounced a little bit.

For half a second the world seemed to splinter into contrast, tunneling in on itself until he was the only thing there, stark and edgy and a grain away from flipping.

Then she ignored all that pesky common sense to stride forward and grasp his wrist, avoiding his eyes as she tugged him towards the literal desert he had created with a muttered "C'mon."

She prayed he couldn't see her shaking.

He let her drag him, stumbling a couple of times and saying nothing. She kept her focus ahead of her, away from him, and her eyes on the ground.

She dropped down onto her knees in the general vicinity of where the nin had disappeared, glanced once at Gaara's ankle.

"He's dead, right?" she asked.

Gaara didn't say anything, and she took that as a yes. She started digging.

After a moment or two Gaara joined her. She didn't ask why he didn't just burst him out, and Gaara didn't explain it to her. They worked together in silence.

When her hands first brushed something solid that wasn't a tree branch she almost yelped, she was wound so tightly. She managed to quash it back but Gaara noticed the sudden lurch of her spine, and he plunged his hands down next to hers. Roughly five minutes later they unearthed the body.

Sakura almost vomited all over the ground in front of her. It was mutilated, dented in unnatural placed and splintered bones peeking through the skin. Blood seeped out the eyes and ears, along with a dull grayish substance that was probably forced out when the right side of his skull was crushed in. His jaw hung open, mask crunched into a thousand pieces, half of which had embedded into his face, skin peppered with white and crimson. His tongue hung limp, almost completely severed and hanging at a ninety degree angle by a thread of muscle.

Sakura was no stranger to gore. Back at Konoha she was around it twenty-four-seven when Tsunade decided to put her on hospital duty.

But the fact that Gaara had done this and enjoyed it was revolting her in an entirely different kind of way.

She took a couple of breaths through her mouth to collect herself, face scrunching at the stench. Despite her best efforts her gaze kept getting dragged back to his single open eye, bulging halfway out it's socket.

(She wondered if he had panicked, or if he had kept his cool throughout the entire ordeal. She wondered if he had felt fear, and if that had been his downfall. She wondered if Gaara had shivered at the first crunch of bones, and then her stomach twisted violently again.)

She sat back on her haunches, steadied herself, and then fixed Gaara with a level stare.

"Why did you do that."

Her voice was flat, completely and utterly, and if she wasn't so rattled she would have congratulated herself. As it was she kept quiet and concentrated, because Gaara was looking back at her and that was doing all kinds of things to her nerves.

She saw him swallow, which boggled her because she'd never taken Gaara as prone to nervous habits, and his tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. "I don't know." He must have seen something in the tension of her jaw, or the way her fingers twitched, begging to clench but being denied the privilege, because he closed his eyes and continued. "I wanted to."

"We don't even know who he is! He could have been – " A horrible thought struck her. "He could have been from Konoha."

When Gaara opened his eyes they were clearer, more sharp and defined and much more like himself. "If they were trying to kill us it's more likely they were from my village.

"Why would your village – " her mouth snapped shut, because she didn't know much about his village and from what she did, assassinating someone who risked everything for them because he posed a minor danger sounding very much like something it would do.

So she turned back to the twisted pile of skin and muscle that had been a working human being just minutes ago. "We should check…" and she trailed off, because right now any words that came out of her mouth just sounded pointless and empty. Instead she reached forward and started patting him down, mentally cringing.

They searched him head to toe and didn't find anything that might have linked him to any village or organization. Finally Sakura was forced to sit back and admit defeat, feeling curiously blank about all the bits of flesh on her hands that she couldn't even comprehend wiping off because then she'd have to acknowledge there was another person's skin on her in the first place.

"We've lost too much time."

Her head snapped around to stare at him, because no one had said anything in too long and hadn't he just crushed someone to death for fun? She couldn't do things like that and think logically the next minute.

"Are you…we can't ignore this," she said, feeling mildly disgusted.

"Ignore what?" he stated flatly, raising his eyes to hers.

And just like that, things felt like they were a tiny bit back to normal. She latched onto it.

"I dunno, the fact that you pretty much just lost it?" she said disbelievingly.

He frowned (she considered telling him he was going to get lines but dismissed it as petty), deeply, and when he spoke his voice held a tinge of ever-familiar irritation. "His death was necessary."

"No, his _capture_ was necessary, the killing him part was just a perk," she ground out. "Doesn't your country know how to take prisoners?"

"Are you _completely_ delusional – "

"Let me see your seal."

He broke off and looked at her like she'd kicked a puppy, which made her feel bad, but she dismissed it. Every second they spent here was precious; she could practically _feel _Tobi catching up to them. No time for all this shifty dancing around each other business they'd adopted. She crawled toward him and, feeling quite adrenaline-chargedly bold, yanked his shirt up.

His instantaneous reaction was to jerk violently away from her, but that only made him lose his balance and topple over backwards. She followed quickly, shimmying up until she straddled his waist and had his wrists pinned above head. The sand shifted nervously underneath them, bulging and twisting into half-formed hills that collapsed mid-creation, making her adrenaline spike again. She ignored it, and his strangled "_Gah_" of protest, and slapped her hand down against his bare belly.

"Stop pulling this shit," she grumbled at him. "When you need chakra tell me."

He had gone curiously still the second her skin came into contact with his, head tilted back and eyes staring blankly at the foliage behind him. His back was arched and taut, and she watched with a weird kind of fascination as his body quivered from the effort of holding their combined weight up.

"You okay there?" she asked as his seal bled to the surface of his skin in response to the energy being given to it, raising a lofty pink eyebrow.

"Fine," he rasped, lips barely moving.

She shrugged and went back to her task, steadying out her flow so his body would have an easier time absorbing it.

When she glanced up again he was looking at her, eyes hazy and unfocused and – just – um. Her chakra flickered and jumped.

Then Gaara went and opened his mouth.

"Did I scare you?"

Her answering scowl was absolutely _ferocious_. "You already asked me that."

She figured she'd given him enough, so she let her chakra taper off and die, noticing as she did so that she had smeared his porcelain skin with blood in a bizarre contrast. Foreign blood.

Gaara noticed too, if the obvious flaring of his nostrils was any indication. He slid his gaze down the sloping incline of his curved torso, then moved it to her hand, smeared with bodily fluid, and stayed there. She shifted a little uncomfortably.

"Just now," he said unperturbedly, eyes still trained on her crimson-stained skin. "Did I scare you?"

"N-no," she fumbled out.

He glanced once at her, and for the life of her she couldn't think what else to say because his eyes were so dark and smoldering and _hot_, and that left her utterly speechless.

"And now?"

"Gaara, what the fuck – "

He tugged her hand up to his face and, as if it was a sugared treat, popped the end of her index finger into his mouth.

Her brain shorted out.

He ignored this, tugging at her until she dumfoundedly leaned forward, granting him better access. He switched over to her middle finger, giving it a hard suck. She almost died when she felt the wet brush of his tongue, hot and slick against her skin, curling around her digit and brushing along its underside.

He methodolically cleaned every one of her fingers, and when he was done with that he moved on to her palm, scraping his teeth over it to get rid of the dried on blood and then removing the leftover traces with his mouth. She spent the entire experience wordlessly frozen, intensely aware of the way his muscles bunched and flexed underneath her when he moved.

He finished off her left hand and pulled her pinky from between his lips with an audible _pop_ that almost made her keel over right then and there.

He looked at her calmly. "Scared now?"

She tilted her head a bit, feeling surreal and on edge and -- well -- her hand was kind of cold, being that it was covered in spit, all at once.

(That almost quirk to the corner of his lip was goddamn _fascinating._)

She wordlessly offered him her other hand.

* * *

Okay gaiz, lemme reiterate that GAARA'S SEAL IS ON HIS FUCKIGN BACK AND I'VE BEEN WRITING IT AS ON HIS STOMACH DID I FUCK UP OR WHAT? I'm retarded, yes. Let's all pretend we don't notice, and when I finally finish the super duper edit project it'll be fixed.


End file.
